Why the 3 credit reports aren't the same

cathy,

credit bureaus never collect your credit information, it is your creditors who report your account to bureaus. Some creditors use some specific credit bureau. It might be that a particular creditor always report to TransUnion, but never work with Experian or Equifax. So this particular account will appear in your TU report, not in the others. This might be a reason that reports from the three bureaus look different.

Besides, there might be some difference in the scoring model used by the credit bureaus. Basically all of them use FICO model, but the score offered by Equifax is called as Beacon, that of TransUnion is known as Empirica and with Experian it is called as Experian/Fair Isaac Risk Model.

However, if the same account is reported differently with different bureaus, then you should dispute it. always check the items appearing in your report are correct, it will help you to maintain a clean credit. Best of luck.