Individual credit histories are of interest to enough parties that entrepreneurs have formed companies to collect and distribute information about individual credit dealings.
Privately operated credit bureaus collect and maintain personal and credit information about millions of individuals, probably including yourself.
Each month thousands of bureaus collect, record, and transmit information to one or more of the country's three major credit bureaus.
Your credit file that is maintained at one or more bureaus contains personal information including your name, current and former addresses, spouse, Social Security number, date of birth, current and past employers, and whether you rent or own your residence.
This file also has financial information, including your income, a record of checks that have been returned for insufficient funds and details of your past credit dealings.
The record is likely to include the lending institution, loan amount, payment terms, and repayment history for each of your current and past loans.
These files also contain legal information (for example; bankruptcies and judgments) such as appears in public notices.
Bureaus are actually nothing more than clearinghouses that collect and share information among creditors and other interested parties.
They don't make a decision on your loan application; rather they supply information to their members, who make their own judgments.
Lenders are at once both the primary users of bureau information and the suppliers of most of the data contained in bureau files.
Creditors utilize bureaus to check on the accuracy of information provided by loan applicants and to determine if applicants have honored current and past credit agreements.
Employers who wish to check on an applicant's former employment also find bureaus to be a valuable source of information.