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Why are credit reports and scores from each of the credit reporting agencies different?

Last Updated: May 26, 2009

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Credit reports will likely vary among the "big three" credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) because they are using different data sources. Not all creditors subscribe to the same credit reporting agencies. so the information that each agency receives can vary. For example, a consumer's data from one creditor might go to Experian and their data from another creditor might go to TransUnion. Credit scores can vary among credit reporting agencies due to differences in both the underlying data reported and the formula that is used to calculate the score.

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