Equifax Incorporated is one of the “big three” consumer credit reporting agencies in America. Equifax gathers credit information on all potential credit card users in the U.S. When you apply for a credit card, the credit card companies contact either Equifax, Experian or TransUnion to get your credit history report, which helps them decide whether they want to give you a line of credit. When you get turned down for a credit card, contacting Equifax to get a free credit report is one of the ways you can learn about your credit score.
What Is Equifax?
Equifax is the oldest of the American consumer credit report agencies. Equifax was founded in 1899 as the “Retail Credit Company”. These days, Equifax has over 7,000 employees in fourteen different countries and has credit files on 400,000 people worldwide. That is, Equifax has a credit history for approximately one out of every eight people on the planet. Despite their size and influence in the credit industry, most people have never heard of Equifax Inc. That’s because Equifax works mainly in the business-to-business sector. Equifax sells their consumer credit reports to big credit card institutions like Visa, American Express and Mastercard — or even your local bank. Since 1999, Equifax offers consumer credit products to the general public. These helps potential debtors learn more about their personal credit history.
Contact Equifax
By law, the consumer credit report corporations must give you a free credit report (if requested) if you are turned down for a credit card. You must make the request for a credit history report within 30 days in most states. Once you get your credit report, you can go over your personal credit history and see if there are any mistakes in the Equifax file. These occasionally will happen. When a mistake is found in your credit report, you can dispute the credit fact. Often, your credit score can go up if you simply do your due diligence and review your credit report.
This link will lead you to the contact Equifax page. This is the home website of Equifax. Once there, you can ask for a free credit report, place a security freeze and fraud alert on your information (if you have had your identity stolen) or dispute information on your credit file. If you’re having problems with getting a line of credit, there’s no reason you shouldn’t take a look at the Equifax site and learn what you can do to help your debt situation.
Dispute Equifax Credit Information
Their website also allows you to dispute Equifax credit information which is supplied to credit institutions. Even if you don’t need another credit card, bad credit history mistakes can hurt your chances of getting a personal loan or home loan from your local bank. People who do get credit may have to pay a higher interest rate, so credit history errors end up costing you a lot of money if you don’t correct them. You can hire a credit repair firm to do the same thing for you, but there is nothing a credit repair corporation can do that you can’t do yourself.
When you dispute information on your credit report on the Equifax website, you’ll have access to their credit questions and answers involving credit disputes. Their credit Q&A helps you work through the major concerns many people with bad credit have when disputing credit information.