Help Interpreting Credit Report Entry?

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I'm staring at my tri-merge report from my lender and can't make sense of the last column on the Negative items section. It's called "Data Source" and has "Subscriber Info" under it, like this:

Data Source

Subscriber Info

What I don't understand is why some negative items have Data Source/Subscriber Info rows that like this:

XPN 1234567890 

and others look like this:

XPN 1234567890

TUC (in red)

and othes look like this:

XPN (maybe red, maybe black!)

TUC (in red)

EFX 0987654321

1. Why would there be more than one CRA listed on any individual negative item?

2. Why are some CRAs in black and others red?

3. Why do some negative items have numbers after the CRA but the other CRAs on the row have no numbers?

SO CONFUSED! I'm trying to bump up my mid-score, which close to my top score. By putting pressure on a few collection agencies who have recently agreed to PFDs I might be able to increase my score but I can't do it strategically if I can't tell which CRA is actually reporting the negative item (and which CRAs are getting the info--it looks like one CRA reports and maybe one or two of the remaining get the info?)

Help.

[Anonymous]

Where are you obtaining your credit reports? I would suggest going to annualcreditreport.com or pulling all three from here. This way you can sort out what items are on each CR. Then you can dissect everything and tackle your baddies one by one.

[Anonymous]

It's a tri-merge lender report from CredCo. 

I pulled all my reports from annualcreditreport.com but when I analyze, say, an item that has 3 CRAs listed for it on my tri-merge report and compare it to what is listed in each of the individual free credit reports, I only observe that there is a 1:1 match between what is on the tri-merge and on my individual CRs. I can't tell which CR on the tri-merge is the one dinging my credit score. I guess if there are 3 CRAs on an individual line in the tri-merge and each CR is reporting that negative item, then I am being dinged on each individual report and the tri-merge just indicates that.

Weird.

[Anonymous]

The trimerge reports from credco are hard to read. I am assuming you received it from a mortgage broker? Any thing that is listed as negative on your free credit reports will ding your score. If these are paid collections and chargeoffs these look better to an underwriter. If they are not paid I would suggest trying to pay for delete if you have the funds to do so.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Hi everyone,

I'm staring at my tri-merge report from my lender and can't make sense of the last column on the Negative items section. It's called "Data Source" and has "Subscriber Info" under it, like this:

Data Source

Subscriber Info

What I don't understand is why some negative items have Data Source/Subscriber Info rows that like this:

XPN 1234567890 

and others look like this:

XPN 1234567890

TUC (in red)

and othes look like this:

XPN (maybe red, maybe black!)

TUC (in red)

EFX 0987654321

1. Why would there be more than one CRA listed on any individual negative item?

2. Why are some CRAs in black and others red?

3. Why do some negative items have numbers after the CRA but the other CRAs on the row have no numbers?

SO CONFUSED! I'm trying to bump up my mid-score, which close to my top score. By putting pressure on a few collection agencies who have recently agreed to PFDs I might be able to increase my score but I can't do it strategically if I can't tell which CRA is actually reporting the negative item (and which CRAs are getting the info--it looks like one CRA reports and maybe one or two of the remaining get the info?)

Help.

---

Collectors and creditors do not always report a negative item to all three CRA's. Often they just report to one, or sometimes two. The tri-merge report merges all three reports together, and so each item listed will show which bureaus are reporting it - XPN is Experian, TUC is TransUnion, and EFX is Equifax. I can't say why some are red and not others without actually seeing the report. One possibility off the top of my head is that it may indicate that particular item was updated or reported in the last month... again without seeing the report is hard to say what the red type may indicate.

The CRA's do not work together to "share" information if thats what you're getting at with your last sentence.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, everyone. This is a tri-merge report that a lender pulled a few weeks ago.

I'm down to just a few items that are more than 2 years old (when I started 2 months ago I had 14!!). I'm just obsessed with details and trying to boost my mid-score before we run credit again in 2 weeks before submitting to underwriting. I'm already at 645 midscore, I just want a slighty higher score if possible.

#obsessed

[RobertEG]

When you refer to a CRA, do you mean collection or credit reporting agency?

[Anonymous]

Yes 

CRA = Credit Reporting Agency 

(for me, anyway)