When we want to see what is up with our credit rating we need to get access to our data held by the major credit reporting agencies.

There are companies that make a profit by getting you to pay for a credit report online (or offline) but all they are really doing is accessing information from these main credit reporting companies (or agencies).

Here I want list the three main credit reporting bureaus:

Experian
TransUnion
Equifax

All of these credit bureaus have different methods for reporting consumer credit information but they are all beholden to the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act).

1. Experian information on Wikipedia
2. TransUnion on Wikipedia
3. Equifax on Wikipedia

If you are not familiar with how these agencies work, they gather information on your credit history. They see if “you’ve been naughty or nice” to be blunt. They track how many sources of credit you have via credit cards and/or loans. They can track your payment history and see if you’ve been delinquent on making any monthly payments.

They report your payment and credit history to lenders so that banks and lenders can better assess the risk they have in lending money to you.

The rate or APR that you borrower money at can be deterimined by your credit rating and these agencies give the vital data lenders use.