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It may interest some people to get a profile of the three major credit bureaus in the United States. This is mainly to get to know the agencies in charge of keeping your credit report on file.

This is a very brief history of TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. It gives you an idea of where they are located and such and how they got started.

Some History

TransUnion was first created in 1968. It was founded by the Union Tank Car Company. Its role as a credit agency took place after the purchase of the Cook County Credit Bureau in 1969.

Today the TransUnion Credit Union is based out of Chicago, Illinois. It operates 250 offices in all.

Experian is actually known as a “credit informational group” according to Wikipedia. It was started in 1980 by John Peace in Nottingham. It has over the years (since 1996) acquired agencies formerly known as TRW Information Services, Bain Capital, and Thomas H. Lee Partners in 1996.

Then, in 1998 Experian acquired CheetahMail. This was a business founded in 1998. Experian is the one that offers the Triple Advantage (SM) Credit Monitoring services. They still require a credit card number for a free credit report but are now complying with the FTC as far as providing free credit reports.

There was an issue back in 2005 during which time it was found out that Experian violated FTC rules. Apparently they were not within-and are still not within Federal Trade Commission rules-because of the fact that they require a credit card number from consumers to receive it.

Equifax is actually the oldest of the three agencies. It was founded in 1899 and is today responsible for over 400 million credit accounts worldwide.

Equifax (formerly Retail Credit Company) especially started to grow in the 1920s and the planting of offices spread throughout the United States and Canada. By the 1960s it has held files for millions of Americans and Canadians.

Of course, just like other credit agencies this one has had its share of dirt dug up about it. There has been a fair share of rumors and inaccuracies pertaining to consumers that were said to be retrieved by Equifax over the years. This has to do with fact that this credit bureau was sued for getting too much into people’s private lives in order to make their situation worse.

All in all though, we still have to deal with Equifax as well as the other two bureaus (TransUnion and Experian). They can either be our friend or our enemy. Most of the time though they are there to help consumers and any problems with these credit bureaus should be reported to the Federal Trade Commission immediately.

Most people are used to getting charged for everything that they are surprised when they hear that you can actually get a free credit report. This is mainly because of recent legislation passed that allows you one report every 12 months from all three credit bureaus.

There is one site for sure where you can get free credit reports. This is called Annual Credit Report.com. Here is where U.S. citizens can obtain one disclosure of their financial records every 12 months from these three agencies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.

You can also seek information at this website as well as at the Federal Trade Commission website on how to report fraud. There is a such thing as an initial fraud alert which stays on your credit report for at least 90 days, and the extended alert lasts up to seven years.

There are numerous other sites that claim to offer free credit reports. However, most of these are seven-day free trials with very ambiguous terms of services and cancellation policies. There are some exceptions of course.

Beware also that you should not have to pay to put a fraud alert on your file. If you are for some reason being required to do so, you are being ripped off. Beware of this according to your federal rights.

If you want to learn more about your rights as a consumer you can read the  This info about the Fair Credit Report Act or you can visit the Federal Trade Comission website.