What's the difference between Experian Equifax and Transunion?

Essentially, they're three different companies that do the same thing. One thing they all seem to have in common is a propensity for erroneous information on credit reports. Because all three agencies report your credit history slightly differently and because there are errors on a large portion of credit reports, it's recommended to obtain a copy of each, which you can do for free once a year.

I worked at one of the credit agencies and learned a lot of information that unfortunately, not many consumers are aware of. The three credit bureaus are simply repositories, or libraries of data where lending agencies report to. It is solely the responsibility of the reporting agency to ensure that the data is correct and NOT the credit bureaus. Mixups of credit histories occur when a lender doesn't include pertinent information to differentiate one individual from another. For example, if a lender reports data on one of it's borrowers, Bob Smith, and doesn't report it using differentiating data such as address, ss number etc., the library doesn't recognize which "Bob Smith's" history to affiliate it with.

The most efficient way to correct data on your credit report to dispute it with the credit agency. What happens when you dispute information is the bureau actually sends the a notice to the creditor that a specific consumer is disputing the information that the lender is reporting. The lender then needs to verify and then either change the data or confirm that the data is being reported correctly.

Once that dispute comes back to the bureau, appropriate changes are made or the information remains the same. This is why when the bureau submits the request to the reporting lender/ creditor and the information comes back as being verified, the bureau does not have the permission to change it on your behalf. After the dispute process is completed and you believe that the information is still ot correct, my recommendation is to contact the lender directly to dispute with that agency.

Why a different credit score for each bureau? Two main reasons: One is that each bureau uses different scoring models and it evaluates different criteria on the file. Two is that some creditors or lenders only report to one, two or all three bureaus and in some instances, none of them.