The three credit reporting agencies: Experion, Equifax and TransUnion are out of control. Please read this recent LA times editorial: It is clear that they are being very devious in their business practices by hiding the location on their web site where consumers have to go to purchase a copy of their annual report. If the agencies are this devious about an obvious process, how trustworthy can they be with our very important,personal and private information? How many "back room deals" have they made with less than reputable companies to sell our credit information? After all, they have all of our personal information in their data base, including our SSNs, birth-dates, employment history, spouse(s), health etc.
If they continue to do business in this devious fashion, the Federal Government needs to rein them in a little. Their business practice is a little like "green mail" -- in that they collect up information about us and then sell it to people who request it. Unless we pay them to allow us to check it they can report anything they want. If I started a "file" on the president of one of these companies, and then offered to sell it to anyone, I'm sure the person would strongly object --but that is what they do to consumers
I agree that credit reporting should be done by private industry -- it is not the job of Government to get involved with it. I also like the fact that there are three companies "competing" in the business with ever so slightly different business models. However the industry is clearly an oligopoly. Like all monopolies and oligopolies, the industry needs a little regulation and guidelines to keep the business from getting out of control and injuring consumers, suppliers, the environment, or the government itself.
In these days of instant communication, the credit agencies should be able to report to the consumer any time anything is posted to their credit report --either bad or good. Also, any time anyone requests information from the credit agency, the consumer should be asked before the information is provided. I'd be willing to pay a small fee for that service. One of the problems is that there are 3 different companies we would have to pay --and the price they are asking seems exorbitant for such a service.
