Equifax

Today, Equifax is a world-famous credit information company that operates in 24 countries on several continents. But its history began in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1899 with a small Retail Credit Company. Brothers Cator and Guy Woolford conducted credit investigations on local residents and sold the results of their findings in the form of individual credit reports.

Over its more than 125-year history, the company has experienced different times and even had conflicts with the state government. But in the end, it turned into one of the leaders in the credit information sphere. Its consumer credit database contains credit histories of more than 800 million people worldwide. The company also maintains a credit history of more than 88 million businesses in its database. It is accessible to financial institutions, businesses, government agencies, and individuals.

Equifax’s Main Mission

Currently, Equifax offers a variety of services for businesses and individuals, including:

• Fraud prevention;
• Identity verification and authentication;
• Data-driven marketing;
• Analytics on the credit risks;
• Assistance in correcting credit history;
• Workforce management, etc.

However, the main function of the Equifax credit bureau is to help businesses, lenders, and creditors determine the creditworthiness of their consumers. To do this, the company performs several tasks:

• Collects information on the financial behavior of consumers;
• Generates credit reports;
• Sells this information to companies that provide financial and other services.

It is important to note that Equifax does not calculate a credit score based on the accumulated data because it is not a credit-scoring company. It only collects data on which these scores can be calculated.

Individual Credit Check Requests

Each person whose data is stored in the company’s database can find out what information about them is being received by creditors. You also can do this for free once a year, and for other requests to the credit bureau, you will have to pay a small fee.

If you see that some data is missing from your credit history, you can contact the company with a request to make adjustments to your data. For example, a creditor forgot to report your repaid loan, or some negative information remained in the credit history, although their term of stay in the file has already expired. In this case, the applicant must provide all documentary evidence of the omitted or incorrect information. Company representatives review this request within 30 days and make the necessary adjustments.

The Key Components of an Equifax Credit Report

What information does Equifax collect about individuals to create credit reports? There are five key components:

• Personal information, including all names that a person has or had before, their Social Security number, address, etc.;
• Open and closed credit accounts, loans and their repayment history, current balances on credit accounts, etc.;
• Credit inquiries including hard and soft credit checks;
• Details on bankruptcies, such as the filing date and type of bankruptcy;
• Collections accounts if the debtor did not repay a loan or credit and it was assigned to collection companies.