There are three national credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Each of these credit bureaus are in the business of selling information about individual consumers' financial status and history with regard to debt and obligations. In order to have information to sell they have to gather information from banks and lenders, collectors and through public records. These suppliers of information are "subscribers".
Our examination revealed that it is common for discrepancies to exist within credit bureaus. One explanation is not all banks, lenders and collection agencies are subscribers of all three credit bureaus. Many subscribe, or report, to only one bureau. There are also errors in reporting that cause inconsistencies.
This inconsistency seems cause confusion for consumers when checking their own credit history. One way we found to simplify the review of an individual credit history is to purchase a merged credit report. This is what mortgage lenders do when reviewing credit reports.
Merged credit reports are not available from any of the three credit bureaus: only available from resellers. The merged credit reports are made by combining credit reports from all three credit reporting bureaus and contains the exact same information as a credit report obtained directly from one of three major credit bureaus.
The fact the information varies from one credit bureau to another can represent a inconvenience but it also represents a benefit in some situations. Consumers may have one credit report that has no bad credit history at all. If they were to apply at a major bank that used that specific report, they would have a much higher likelihood of getting approved than if they applied at a bank that used one of the other two credit bureau credit reports containing adverse credit history.
In addition, for those consumers disputing bad credit items, they need not send disputes to all three credit bureaus; only the credit bureau reporting the bad credit. This makes it a little easier to manage the paperwork involved in disputing bad credit history.
