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The three major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — play a key role in your financial life. But do you know how they work?
Money expert Clark Howard emphasizes all the time how important it is to have clean credit reports and good credit scores. To do that, you have to understand who you’re dealing with and how they operate.
In this article, we’ll take a look at how the three big credit reporting agencies do business, how that affects you and what options you have when it comes to dealing with them.
The three main credit bureaus are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
All three companies work essentially the same way: They collect information on your credit behavior and sell that data to other companies that use it to decide your creditworthiness.
These credit reporting agencies can collect this information without your permission, but what they do with it is regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). That means:
We’ll get into how to manage these things later in this article.
Credit bureaus collect information from a number of sources to create what’s commonly called a “credit report” on consumers like you and me. Those sources can include banks, credit card companies, other lenders, retailers and even landlords.
Whenever you apply for credit — say, a new credit card or an auto loan — the creditor will pull your credit report from one or more of those bureaus to check your creditworthiness. In general, the fewer negative marks you have on your credit report, the more likely you’ll be able to get a credit card or loan with favorable rates.
Those reports are also used to generate your credit scores, which are used in credit-making decisions as well. Each credit bureau assigns its own score for you. Those scores can be different from agency to agency. It depends on the information each of the credit agencies has been able to get and the formula each uses to calculate your score.
Now that you know what the three main credit bureaus are and how they work, you might be wondering what control you have over the credit files they’re keeping on you. There are a number of ways you can interact with the bureaus:
So how do you accomplish these things? Let’s get into the specifics with each bureau.
You can request a free copy of your credit report from two of the three credit bureaus. Here’s how:
Equifax
To get your free credit report from Equifax, you have to sign up for the myEquifax program. As a member of myEquifax, you get access to your Equifax credit report twice per year at no charge.
Equifax may try to push you to sign up for one of its paid products. It is not necessary to do this in order to get your free report.
Experian
You can sign up to get your free Experian credit report here. One nice thing about Experian’s offering is that it lets you access your credit report for free every 30 days after you sign up.
Again, beware of signing up for paid products with Experian.
TransUnion
Unfortunately, as of this writing, TransUnion doesn’t give you a way to get your credit report directly from the company — except in limited circumstances.
Instead, the TransUnion website will point you to AnnualCreditReport.com, where you can access your free credit report.
If you need to contact Equifax, Experian or TransUnion for any reason, you have a few options. Here’s the contact information:
Bureau | Phone (Reach a Real Person) | Online Contact |
Equifax | 1-866-640-2273 | Click here |
Experian | 1-714-830-7000 | Click here |
TransUnion | 1-866-640-2273 | Click here |
To learn more about reaching a real person at each of the credit bureaus, click here.
When you access your credit reports, you may find errors in them. If you choose to request removal of the error by mail, you’ll need to send the bureau a letter. You can find a template for that letter here.
Equifax also offers a way to dispute errors online, but completing the process by mail can help you keep a better paper trail. And Clark recommends you send the letter via Certified Mail.
If you choose to dispute the error by mail, you will need to fill out one or more of the dispute forms linked below.
Credit Bureau | Address for Disputes | Link to Instructions/Dispute Form |
Equifax | Equifax Information Services, LLC P.O. Box 740256 Atlanta, GA 30374-0256 | |
Experian | Experian P.O. Box 4500 Allen, TX 75013 | |
TransUnion | TransUnion Consumer Solutions P.O. Box 2000 Chester, PA 19016-2000 |
Clark says that freezing your credit with all three major credit bureaus is the single most important thing you can do to protect yourself against identity theft — and it’s free. Here’s how to do it:
Credit Bureau | Online | By Phone | By Mail |
Equifax | Equifax Credit Freeze page | 888-298-0045 | Equifax Information Services, LLC P.O. Box 105788 Atlanta, GA 30348 |
Experian | Experian Credit Freeze page | 888-EXPERIAN (888-397-3742) | Experian Security Freeze P.O. Box 9554 Allen, TX 75013 |
TransUnion | TransUnion Credit Freeze page | 888-909-8872 | TransUnion P.O. Box 160 Woodlyn, PA 19094 |
Learn more about freezing your credit here.
This post was last modified on August 6, 2020 10:03 am
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