Which Credit Bureau Should I Use To Check My Credit Report?
Equifax, Experian and Trans Union are the three foremost credit bureaus in the United States. The function of these credit bureaus is to gather your personal and financial data. This information collated and summarized forms your credit report which the credit bureaus then sell to banks, credit unions, credit card companies, mortgage and auto loan lenders.
Lending and credit companies will use this credit information in your credit report as complied by credit bureaus to determine if they should approve you as a borrower and the interest rates that you should pay.
Many people are now getting aware of the significance of verifying their own credit reports to ensure accuracy. This will help them to know their position in the credit world. Until they actually start the formalities and procedures for acquiring their credit reports, most people do not even know that they have three credit reports from three different credit bureaus. The three main credit bureaus will maintain different credit reports from the other and will give their own credit report when required. The credit bureaus are in reality competitors and do not share information or work in collusion to produce credit reports. Hence, very often the information given on credit reports from different credit bureaus will differ from one and another.
It is thus advisable to verify you credit reports from all three credit bureaus in order to ensure you complete credit history.