Credit Bureau
[kred-it byoor-oh] n. Private company that collects information about consumers from banks, creditors, and legal records in order to create a consumer credit report for use by lenders and other financial institutions.
Decades ago, banks and other lenders had to base lending decisions on personal interviews with prospective borrowers or on their past history with the borrower. This made for a difficult, inefficient, and unreliable method of estimating credit risk.
In an effort to gather more information about consumers that could be used to calculate credit risk, banks began working with other creditors to create consumer credit reports that contained information about a person's credit use from multiple sources. Over time, this task of managing credit reports was outsourced to third party credit bureaus that would then provide consumer credit reports to the banks in exchange for a fee.
Today, what was a large number of credit bureaus spread across the country has, through the process of mergers and acquisitions, been reduced to the three primary credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.Making sure the
Credit bureaus perform the daunting task of collecting information about each of over two hundred million adults in the U.S. who use credit. The process for doing this, however, is not a perfect one. Whether because of human error, identity theft, or the rigid nature of the credit reporting system, the credit bureaus store information on the credit reports of millions of people that is inaccurate, misleading, or biased.
Fortunately, consumers have the right to dispute these questionable negative items with the credit bureaus in an effort to get them removed from their credit reports. Lexington Law's credit repair services have helped clients remove millions of these questionable credit listings.
FAQ: What is the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)?
Decades ago, banks and other lenders had to base lending decisions on personal interviews with prospective borrowers or on their past history with the borrower. This made for a difficult, inefficient, and unreliable method of estimating credit risk.
In an effort to gather more information about consumers that could be used to calculate credit risk, banks began working with other creditors to create consumer credit reports that contained information about a person's credit use from multiple sources. Over time, this task of managing credit reports was outsourced to third party credit bureaus that would then provide consumer credit reports to the banks in exchange for a fee.
Today, what was a large number of credit bureaus spread across the country has, through the process of mergers and acquisitions, been reduced to the three primary credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
Making sure the
credit bureaus get it right
Credit bureaus perform the daunting task of collecting information about each of over two hundred million adults in the U.S. who use credit. The process for doing this, however, is not a perfect one. Whether because of human error, identity theft, or the rigid nature of the credit reporting system, the credit bureaus store information on the credit reports of millions of people that is inaccurate, misleading, or biased.
Fortunately, consumers have the right to dispute these questionable negative items with the credit bureaus in an effort to get them removed from their credit reports. Lexington Law's credit repair services have helped clients remove millions of these questionable credit listings.
More information about credit bureaus
PsychDoc's Credit Insider Guide to Credit Bureaus and Credit ReportsFAQ: What is the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)?
Client Results
As the leading firm in credit report repair, Lexington Law assists our clients in the removal of over a thousand questionable items from credit reports every single day.What kind of questionable negative items can be removed from reports?
Listed below is a partial list of the types and number of items our clients removed last quarter:**Bankruptcy
2,186
Charge Off
29,700
Collection
73,827
Foreclosure
678
Incl. in Bankruptcy
10,237
Judgment
6,928
Late Payment
38,128
Lien
4,236
Repossession
1,170
Settlement Accepted
4,029
*Important: While the testimonials and other information on this website may be exciting, Lexington Law promises only to perform the steps we've agreed to in each client's case and to charge each month only for steps already completed. As with any legal work, no outcome is promised. Your results may vary.
“
I would just like to say that your firm has done everything it said it would do and i would and have recomended you
to several people. In the last few months you gotton off about 8 Bad things that were on credit report thank you
for being such a great company.
”
— Kevin, Lexington client*
(Your results may vary)
— Kevin, Lexington client*
(Your results may vary)
© 2009 Lexington Law™ All rights reserved. John C. Heath, Attorney at Law, PLLC. The services of Lexington and its affiliates may not be available in all states. Lexington Law is a group of law firms that may also be referred to throughout this site as "Lexington," "Lexington Law Firm," "we," "us," or "the firms". The number of items removed represents the combined results of the group. Terms of Use were last updated on 02/24/2006. Privacy Policy was last updated on 02/24/2006. // 1.0.1