Credit report agency as the name suggests is an agency which collects your personal data and makes a credit report for you. Credit reporting agencies collect data like addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security Number, and birth information, a detailed credit history, including information on loans, credit cards, and timeliness of repayments, Public records, such as bankruptcies, liens, judgments etc. Based on all this information they make a credit report for every citizen who wants his or her credit report. Agency credit reporting or consumer credit reporting agency collect all this personal data from the data basses of banks, employers, landlords and money lenders to compile into a information database from which a credit report will be made. When you apply for a personal loan, insurance or a job there is a file about you which contains all your information such as where you live, work, whether you have been sued or arrested the companies that gather and sell this information are called Consumer Reporting agencie (CRA), what the CRAs sell to your creditors, employers or other businesses is called a consumer report. The CRAs must give you all the information in your report and the list of all the people who have requested for your credit report. Anyone who denies you a job or loan based on your credit report has to provide you with the name of the CRA. In case you are denied a job based on your credit report then you are entitle to a free report for up to a year same is the case in case you are unemployed or are on welfare otherwise you may be charged up to $ 9 by the CRA. In case you have a dispute regarding your report with the CRA you can file for reinvestigation which they must carry out with in 30 days unless they find your dispute frivolous. When the reinvestigation is complete and there is a change in your report the CRA must inform all the other CRAs of the change in our credit report and provide you with a copy.
The three major credit reporting agency are Equifax credit reporting agency, Experian credit reporting agency and Trans union credit reporting agency. This just tells you that every thing you do is monitored by the Federal government as its them that run these CRAs .