does where you live make a difference to which bureau is pulled?

[suzook1]

I live in FL and it seem Trans Union is typical. Does it matter where you live or the creditor?

[haulingthescoreup]

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@aleicgrant wrote:

I live in FL and it seem Trans Union is typical. Does it matter where you live or the creditor?

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It used to matter a whole lot, back when the data gatherers used to have to drive to local courthouses and whatnot, and there are some lingering patterns: Equifax is particularly popular in the Southeast, and TransUnion in the Upper Midwest.

But with pretty much everything available by computer these days, it's more often by lender. Some lenders almost always pull one certain bureau, some pull one preferentially and the others in addition if they think there isn't enough info on the first, and others vary greatly by area. So a lender might pull EQ in one state, TU in another, and EX in a third.

And then there's dearly loved Cap One, pulling all three.

[AndySoCal]

Some lender(s) choose which bureau by where you live. For whatever reason(s) one bureau is preferred over another depending on where in the country you live.  For example in many areas of the east Equifax is preferred but on the west coast Experian is preferred.  

Haulin,

Your comment regarding the data gatherers at the court house. Are they ones that  gather the information on tax liens judgments and bankruptcies and the like? If so they do not exist.  The courthouses have their own subscriber codes with each of the bureaus. The industry code which is the the two letters in subscirber code reporting the publice record tells you what industry the business the creditor is in.  The industry code court subscriber codes will be either VC, VS, VF. If the bureaus actually got the public record info in that fashion they would be on CSPAN in front a congressional sub committee. 

[haulingthescoreup]

Re-read what I wrote:

   It used to matter a whole lot, back when the data gatherers used to have to drive to local courthouses and whatnot...

   But with pretty much everything available by computer these days...

Back in the day, people used to make a living by collecting info on public records for the credit bureaus. I know someone who used to do this. That was pre-computer.

So although there are still some geographic loyalties, for lack of a better term, you don't see nearly as much any more. I'm guessing that some lenders stay with a bureau because they're familiar with them and have mutual contacts and relationships, and others go strictly on business decisions --highest perceived quality, lowest cost, whatever.

[AndySoCal]

That must have quite a while ago when that was being done.  I have seen a post or two on the forum where people think this happening today. Also, that people's credit is affrected by these people today.  

[haulingthescoreup]

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@AndySoCal wrote:

That must have quite a while ago when that was being done.  I have seen a post or two on the forum where people think this happening today. Also, that people's credit is affrected by these people today.  

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To repeat:

  Back in the day, people used to make a living by collecting info on public records for the credit bureaus. I know someone who used to do this. That was pre-computer.

I'm not talking about people having a 32-bit Atari home computer. I'm talking about before businesses started using the Internet for commercial purposes, and that didn't start happening big-time until the late nineties per another thread somewhere here on the forums. I think it was the early to mid nineties when my friend (a court reporter) tried to lure me into driving around to local county courthouses to copy public information. (I came up with this by remembering how old my kids were at the time, which wasn't very. Elementary school for the oldest, and the youngest still at home.) That was one of the ways that credit reports were updated pre-Internet.

TransUnion got started in the credit business by buying a credit bureau in the Chicago area. Equifax is headquartered in Atlanta. It's not terribly surprising that there are still some regional patterns of usage, but they're nowhere near as strong as they used to be.

As for people thinking that it's still happening, look at all the stuff that people still believe, courtesy of old info on the internet, repeated by lazy reporters, and still believed by people who experienced it first-hand 20 years ago. Used to be how it was done, not done now, but many people don't realize that it has changed. 

[AndySoCal]

Hauling,

I would have thought it was before nineties when that was happening.  You also had the main frame computers processing and storing data where data could be transferrred by tape of other such media.

[haulingthescoreup]

Perhaps things were slow in my peaceful little backwoods town. 

We also had a family friend who ran the local TRW credit bureau. Seemed like every town had at least one. (TRW later became Experian.) That was right around 1990.

Sure, they had mainframes, and they were backing up their own data. I wonder when they started thinking about sharing data with other entities, though?

Now that computers and e-commerce are so ubiquitous, it's easy to forget (or never know) how very new this all is, and what a huge paradigm shift has occurred.

[Booner72]

@AndySoCal - Hi there - I've read lots of your posts but I don't think I've ever talked to you before - I am extremely interested in your comment about the ficticious people that prowl courthouses.  See, I thought those people were real.  I read here (and admit I've passed on what I've read) that courthouses do not give info to the cra's, that there are "companies" aka people, that gather the public info and sell it.  Not true?

So the judgment I have from 2/2010 that was placed against me in my local county that is reported to both TU and EQ was reported by an actual county employee on a governmental computer?  Not some prowler?

Any more info you can provide will be greatly appreciated to not only myself, but to many others.

Also -- haven't you guys read the stickie on the history of the credit reporting agencies?  It is so fascinating about timelines of it all and how this entire thing got started.

Thanks!

[AndySoCal]

Booner72,

Yes, your judgement was report by the court  and not a prowler around the courthouse.  What Haulin is referring is people hired by the bureau to gather legal records to be included in credit reports. I can believe this was happening in the days before computers were set up to do this task.  I do not belive the other scenerio of people gathering up the informatrion and then reselling it to the bureau.  This scenerio has way to many problems with it to be even true.. There is a reason why judgments, bankruptcies, liens etcs are in the Public Records section of a credit report.