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Nowadays, credit card companies are seeking ways to reduce risk. This is so they do not have to pay out as much money as they did in the past. This information was true as of September 2009, but new laws have changed since then.

A revelation of this information can clue you in onto some of the changes made before February 20, 2010. For instance, credit card companies who want to reduce risk have used one of the following three tactics:

1. Some consumers have been hit with lowered credit lines. The general rule of thumb was that they wanted to lower the lines of credit to below the outstanding balances of the consumer.
2. Other credit card companies are seeking ways to raise interest rates. This was done as a way to try to push consumers into making payments.
3. Other consumers who have locked-in interest rates saw rises in minimum payments. This has causes the minimum payments of people to double and triple in some cases.

Options for Consumers

Upon credit card companies starting to take one of the above actions against consumers, these companies did make some offers to consumers. For instance, they were able to opt out of an interest rate increase.

This was done by way of closing the account and continuing to pay off the debt a little at a time-at their own pace. This of course is another action that causes damage to a person’s credit scores.

Upon talking to a credit counselor, some consumers were advised to call and re-negotiate interest rates. Some people were successful and some were not. In any case, many of these consumers (as well as the ones whose minimum balances were hiked) were force to seek funding elsewhere.

Laws have changed in 2010. There are certain actions that credit card companies cannot take that they could not before, and some of these apply to the three actions described above.

In any case, the best action is to pay debt off as quickly as possible. Then, a consumer should try to re-configure the home budget so that temporary credit is no longer needed.

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.