How to Read & Understand Your Credit Report, Statue of Limitations on Debt - State By State, Everything You Need to Know About Filing for Bankruptcy, How To Rebuild Your Credit After Bankruptcy, Banks That Don't Use ChexSystems & Second Chance Banks. Each one uses the same financial information, but various algorithms give different weight to relevant data points. It really just depends on you and your timeline. Equifax Inc. is a United States consumer credit reporting agency –a part of the credit reporting agency trifecta: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. 2. In some cases, those discrepancies can have a big impact on your score. For lenders and credit card companies, the information is used first to determine whether or not you’re approved for the loan or card. This made it increasingly difficult for banks to track the payment history of loan applicants. This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. When you get to the website, simply click on the “Request your free credit reports” button. In one such case in 2003, a client named Judy Thomas was awarded $5.3 million (later reduced to $1 million) because she accused the company of taking upwards of six years to remove extraneous information from her credit report. Disclaimer: Crediful does its best to maintain accurate and updated information. It also sells reports and subscription services for credit monitoring online as well as a credit lock service that prevents gratuitous inquiries into a subscriber’s credit report. Missing information on one or more credit reports isn’t a cause for concern, but inaccurate information is. Suffice it to say; it can be difficult to truly “know” your credit score because at the end of the day it’s a pretty subjective number. From there, they’ll use your middle score to determine your credit offer. Your guide to everything personal finance. However, our web content may be different than the information you receive from a financial institution or service provider. That’s because no creditor is required to send your financial information to any of the credit bureaus. Because TransUnion and Equifax are two separate reporting agencies, they place different emphasis on what is, essentially, the same information. It's simple: we will never steer you in the wrong direction just because a company offers to pay us. Before choosing any financial product, read all information, including terms and conditions from the financial service provider. They each use a slightly different method of collecting, reporting, and analyzing your financial information. She has served as a feature writer for the life-and-style section of the "Daily Herald," a contributor to "Utah Valley Weekly," an editor for a small publishing house and now as director of communications for an Internet company.