The thought of pulling your credit can make most people a little uncomfortable.
Often times people are nervous about what they may find on their report, some
new surprise that they didn’t even know existed. Many consumers aren’t even sure
where to access their credit reports.
The credit reporting industries inception was in 1899 and it remained virtually
unregulated until Congress passed the initial Fair Credit Reporting Act in 1970.
Since that time there have been many amendments, including consumer rights and
protections.
The credit bureaus are agencies that hold billions of credit histories on consumers
and commercial entities. The credit reporting agencies provide data to lenders to
use to determine an individuals credit worthiness.
The three major credit bureaus are Equifax, Experian and Transunion. Do you know
you may have a different score with each one of the major bureaus? Yes, that’s right,
your credit score may not be the same with each credit bureau. Each credit bureau
uses its own mathematical formula to calculate your credit score.
Experian uses the “Plus Score” as it’s scoring method. Equifax uses the “Credit
Score” and Tranunion uses the “TransRisk”. The higher your credit score the lower
you are as a credit risk. All these methods are similar to the Fair Isaac Corporation
(FICO) score whose range is from 300-850.
Understanding your credit will help to remove some of the anxiety we all feel when
we think of our credit score and the impact it can have on your life.