Credit Repair Coach Explains the Secrets of the Credit Bureaus

Posted by Cliff Pape

April 22, 2009

by Cliff Pape

There are several terms thrown around these days for institutions that keep track of your financial health. If you have ever been informed that a Credit Reporting Agency or even a Consumer Reporting Agency has been given data on you, they are referring to nothing more than one of the Credit Bureaus.

The credit bureau’s business is to sell (note the word sell) your credit records to lenders, banks, landlords, and even employers so they can make a decision if they want to trust you with their capital. We all know the most widely recognized US credit bureaus Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, but their are a couple others you need to know. The emerging new bureau is Innovis and we should not forget its importance to our scores. Dun and Bradstreet Corporation is also extremely important because it deals exclusively with business credit history.

The credit bureaus store database 1 billion individual consumer and business records. About 2 billion individual credit transactions are entered into those records each month. That’s a tremendous amount of data to manage correctly don’t you think?

Most of us don’t realize that around 80% of all credit reports contain errors. Most of these errors go unnoticed. This is because mistakes may only get noticed if you get declined for credit. However, a lot of people just say “ok” to their score because of the psychological effect that the acceptance of one mishap in your history can cause. We tell ourselves, “Yeah, I know it’s bad cause of that late payment I had.” And so we just accept it.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA) now set out the obligations for credit bureaus to maintain fair and accurate records which is a big improvement. The Act tells the Bureaus how to respond to consumer complaints of inaccuracies and requires them to provide a way for consumers to view their records.

Credit reporting agencies generate their profits by charging a fee to banks, lenders, credit card companies and online agencies for pulling your credit report. They don’t actually make any money at all for allocating a staff member to look into complaints or disputes into any errors found in your personal data.

Here is the first secret of the credit bureaus:

Depending on who requests your credit information, your score could have up to 92 unique variations. That means each of the bureaus could have potentially 23 different scores outside of your actual real score.

Your credit score will differ based on who pulls the it and which profile has been applied to you. Typically the score you get if you pull it from a major reporting bureau or an online service absolutely will be different - and usually higher than the score you get from a mortgage broker.

When you request a report from an internet service for example, there are usually about 18 elements of identification that have to match exactly. You are more likely to get accurate information if the majority of information matches up. When the credit bureaus pull a report for a lender, only about 9 elements have to sync. So, more errors and erroneous information are likely to appear on your score which can drop your score.

It has been speculated that the credit bureaus provide these different and lower scores because if they are reporting lower scores to lenders, then they feel that they would be less likely to be sued by lenders if the borrower defaults on the loan.

It makes you wonder whether your credit report is there to protect you, the bureaus or the lenders!

About the Author:

Home Buddies gives lectures on investor credit repair in Houston. Beginning with a free session for website visitors, Home Buddies develops and implements a custom strategy to restore credit and creates a business development strategy to help investors or homeowners overcome problems to financing real estate and growing a portfolio.

Personal Finance

Tags:Personal Finance
Technorati Tags:Personal Finance

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Comments

No comments yet.

Ebay Deals on Personal Finance

[CaRP] Can't open cache file.

Personal Finance

Ordermaster NEW by L.E. Jr. Modesitt
10 Jun 2010 at 8:33am
US $11.43
End Date: Monday Aug-09-2010 6:38:35 PDT
Buy It Now for only: US $11.43
Buy it now | Add to watch list

RACHAEL RAY NEW 10 Pc COOKWARE Orange Porcelain Enamel
14 Aug 2009 at 8:33am
US $189.87
End Date: Monday Aug-09-2010 6:38:46 PDT
Buy It Now for only: US $189.87
Buy it now | Add to watch list

Tarot Card Reading 8 Card Spiritual Guidance ANY TOPIC
10 Jul 2010 at 8:41am
US $5.99
End Date: Monday Aug-09-2010 6:41:20 PDT
Buy It Now for only: US $5.99
Buy it now | Add to watch list

Power and the State NEW by Martin J. Smith
10 Jun 2010 at 8:37am
US $40.27
End Date: Monday Aug-09-2010 6:42:02 PDT
Buy It Now for only: US $40.27
Buy it now | Add to watch list

Empire Unacquainted with Defeat NEW by Glen Cook
10 Jul 2010 at 8:38am
US $17.84
End Date: Monday Aug-09-2010 6:43:37 PDT
Buy It Now for only: US $17.84
Buy it now | Add to watch list

Youtube Videos for Personal Finance

[CaRP] Can't open cache file.

Videos tagged with Personal Finance

iFreeBudget - Transactions tutorial
8 Aug 2010 at 8:37pm

iFreeBudget tutorial - Creating transactions
8 Aug 2010 at 7:57pm

NotLinda Dot Com - Vote Peter Schiff
8 Aug 2010 at 1:09pm

Future personal finance interface.mov
8 Aug 2010 at 1:32am

Bestsellers on Personal Finance

[CaRP] Unknown document format.

Could not open http://www.searchfeed.com/rd/feed/XMLFeed.jsp?trackID=B7643778475&cat=Personal+Finance&pID=41711&nl=2&page=1&ip=38.107.179.236 for parsing!

Credit Repair Coach Explains the Secrets of the Credit Bureaus

Comments

Leave a comment

Ebay Deals on Personal Finance

Youtube Videos for Personal Finance

More Videos for Personal Finance

Bestsellers on Personal Finance