Credit reporting agency
What is a credit-reporting agency?

This is a label given to businesses whose sole purpose is the gathering of information about people that pertains to their credit experience. They keep records on businesses and individuals as well. According to Investopedia there are two types of these agencies, one for businesses and one for individuals and they gather their information from such sources as those that are in the business of extending credit. There are three major credit-reporting agencies in the US. They are Experian, Trans Union and Equifax. These agencies hold your ability to borrow money in their data banks.

Besides collecting the information about you and your spending or rather your paying habits these agencies also generate your credit score. This is a system that was devised to rate individuals and business so that a lender could almost tell at a glance who should be a safe credit risk. Experian is the only one of the three that does not use the FICO scoring system. They have actually developed their own. This is also one of the reasons the scores vary from one agency to the next.

The credit reporting agencies seem like they are all powerful, and yes they do exert quite a bit of influence, yet, there are guidelines in place to keep them from being unfair in their practices. The Federal Trade commission has established the Fair Credit Reporting Act to keep the agencies and the lenders honest. That does not mean that there will not be mistakes of course there will be but you do have recourse.

Getting negative marks off of a credit report is not a very easy process but it can be done. Disputing errors take time and you have to first get a copy of your credit report and use the form that should accompany it. When requesting the error correction you must make sure it is clearly designated and one way to do this is to use a hi-lighter and then photocopying the page. Send this to the credit reporting agency and the creditor along with a supporting documents and a letter explaining the discrepancies.

If this seems like a daunting task, it is really only half of the equation. You also need a good re-payment plan for other unsecured debts that could also cause bad marks on your credit report. Credit reporting agencies get up to date information from credit card companies monthly. You may need help with the entire process and with dealing with the credit reporting agencies. That is what we are offering at Debt Consolidation America.