Hiya Susy!
I understand your confusion.
Here is my answer. Each CRA maintains a wealth of your credit data. That is your "credit file.": When you get a "credit report," it is a sanitized version of yoour credit file.
Then along come commercial vendors who want to market and sell "credit reports" based on the data from each CRA.
So each vendor contracts with each CRA as to what data they will be entitled to in their commercial product. Each vendor then extracts only what they choose to show in their "credit report," and how they want to show it. There is no standard for what is provided in the CR sold by any commercial vendor. The only standard is legal prohibitions of what they cannot show are:
1. normal CC delinquencies over 7 years,
2. collections and chargeoffs over 7/12 years fro last delinquency
3. Chap 7 bankrupticies over 10 years.
Your commercial credit report is not a report of your credit file. It is only what the vendor has access to, and has chosen to include in your "credit report."
The free and governmentally mandated credit report available once a year from annualcreditreport.com is the absolute best credit reprot you will ever receive.
