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Are Credit Bureaus Official?
There's
so much wrong with practically every word of this
fantasy that it's tough for a consumer advocate to
know where to begin. To be sure, there isn't anything
much official about the credit bureaus at all. Rather,
the major consumer reporting agencies -- Equifax,
Experian, and TransUnion are simply three large
companies operating respectably within the private
sector. In fact, in you were so inclined, you could
own a piece of Equifax and Experian yourself just
by telephoning your stockbroker. (Forget about buying
shares in TransUnion for now, though, as it's still
privately owned.) Sadly, too many creditors want Americans
to believe that the credit bureaus enjoy an official,
quasi-governmental franchise and will somehow punish
consumers who dare to fight back against sloppy reporting,
usurious APRs, exploitative late fees, inexplicable
surcharges, unethical debt collection practices, and
worse. Such creditors want consumers to believe that
challenging a credit report item is like questioning
a courthouse record. Fortunately, that's just not
so. So contrary to the prevailing perceptual reality,
there are no official bureaus. And while most Americans
perceive their credit reports to have at least the
same legal standing as their driving records, the
truth is that the government has no role in producing
them. Put bluntly, no law mandates a credit report's
existence, and such documents may be considered to
be no more than a list of allegations remaining to
be proven.
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