Where does information in a credit report come from?

The information in your credit report rarely if ever comes from you, and that can be a problem. You really don’t have any control over what information goes into your credit report, although you have a right to correct inaccurate information contained in the reports.

The information that the credit bureaus collect on you is dependant almost entirely on creditors…the companies you owe money to AND from public records. If you have no credit history, the information might come from the bank that is processing your first application for a credit card. If you’ve been out there a while, the information could come from any number of sources…companies that have issued you credit cards, banks that have given you loans, department stores where you have charge accounts, and so on. The trouble is, not all your creditors report on you all the time. Oil companies only report on accounts that are 90 days delinquent, for example. Some creditors don’t report this information at all.

Another problem is the sheer amount of information credit bureaus have to keep track of. With hundreds of thousands of creditors reporting billions of pieces of information gathered on millions of consumers each year, you don’t have to be a mathematician to figure there are going to be errors. Some may merely be annoying, but others could prove costly to you when you go to get a loan or a credit card. In fact, studies have shown that credit report errors are astoundingly common.