Most people would immediately think of Credit Bureaus if you
mention Credit Report Agencies. And that does describe most credit
bureaus but there are also many companies that deal with credit
reports. Some are specific to certain industries, some apply
additional credit scoring to drill down for specific information,
others might be research companies interested in demographics and
other data that can be determined from credit reports.
One good example is the many real estate related credit report
agencies. They cater to the apartment, home leasers, and self
finance home sellers. They usually provide additional information
on prospective clients for these types of companies or
individuals. Since most of these types of transactions are similar
to credit transactions, they often want the same information and
more.
There are also many private investigative firms that report on
credit and a host of other areas such as a criminal check, work
related experience, even financial transactions that may not be on
a credit report. This is a common request by individuals and
companies who are about to sign an agreement of some type and want
a more expanded background check.
There are a host of websites that offer this type of background
check which also may include credit reports or similar
information. For as little as $35 you can do what's called a trace
check and even find people who have otherwise dropped off the
radar. Missing relatives, a friend from college, ex-wives or
husbands, etc.
The bad news about all these additional credit reporting
agencies is they don't always fall under the supervision or laws
that were created to protect individuals. Very often they use less
than above board methods to discover information. They may
interview family, neighbors, friends, and acquaintances and not
bother to substantiate any information received.
Since they often buy the credit report from another company,
then use that information as a basis to do further research, they
can often escape the legalities. Since people often sign an
agreement to have their background and credit checked, there's no
easy or cheap way to monitor or take any type of legal action.
One way to track any research being done on your credit is to
monitor your credit history at one or all of the three major
credit bureaus. The bad news is that most only report after the
fact. Which is to late to stop any research. Although some credit
bureaus allow you to put a hold on any requests for information,
they may not always catch it before the fact.
Financial data can provide a great source of information that
can lead to many different aspects of anyone's activities. And
then there are the public records that hold a lot of financial
data. Anything that comes up during any type of court action can
be public information, just like marriages and divorces.
Settlements often list otherwise private information that could be
used to find out even more about anyone.
So you may never know what credit report agencies are involved,
or what kind of other information is available for the time and
trouble to look it up. Everything we do is recorded somewhere, and
access is not always as secure as it should be. Even the
government is susceptible data breaches by employees, hackers, and
stolen laptops.
