Did you know that TransUnion started as a parent holding company for a railcar leasing company? Or that Experian is not based in the United States? I started reading about the history of some of the credit bureaus and was fascinated with what I found. For example, did you know Experian was founded in 1980 while Equifax was founded in 1899?

Read on to find out more about the major credit reporting agencies.

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Whether it’s driving on the highway or surfing on the information superhighway, I’ve been seeing a lot of ads for credit reports and credit scores. With the economy weak, people are looking to play defense and advertising are looking to capitalize. Like I’ve said in the past, checking your credit report annually is one of the best financial things you can do for yourself.

I have one word of warning for you: Don’t ever go to a company that isn’t Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, or Fair Isaac. Never ever.

Here’s why:

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One of the best financial things you can do for yourself is to regularly check your credit report. Identity theft is a huge business with billions of losses each year, not to mention all the time it takes to unravel the mess, so checking regularly is a great way to catch a theft early. That’s why you saw so many FreeCreditReport.com commercials on TV with the guy playing a guitar and singing about his ID theft woes!

So what’s the deal with them? Weren’t they sued? Is it a scam?

Let’s find out.

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The conventional wisdom is that you should check your credit reports at least once a year and your score only when you need it. This morning, I argued in a Devil’s Advocate post that services make it easy (and free, in some cases) to check your score all the time so you might as well do it.

This is part two of a two part Devil’s Advocate, Angel’s Advocate article in which I argue both sides of an issue. This is the Angel’s Advocate post, here is the Devil’s Advocate post where I argue you should be monitoring your credit score all the time!

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The conventional wisdom is that you should check your credit reports at least once a year and your score only when you need it. However, with services like MyFICO and Credit Karma, checking your credit score “all the time” has become just as cheap as checking it infrequently once a year.

Credit Karma is 100% free and they give you a TransUnion credit score using TransUnion data. It’s not technically a FICO score but it’s free and good enough for the reasons I give for monitoring your score all the time. You will have to provide sensitive personal information, since they will be accessing your actual TransUnion credit report, but you’ll never need to pull out your credit card.

MyFICO is run by Fair Isaac Corporation, the creator of the FICO score, and it costs money, about $9 a month. You get an Equifax FICO score every week, among other services. I don’t think it’s important to get an official FICO score all the time if you can get a credit score from one of the three credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion).

This is part one of a two part Devil’s Advocate, Angel’s Advocate article in which I argue both sides of an issue. This is the Devil’s Advocate post, here is the Angel’s Advocate post arguing why monitoring your credit score all the time is a bad idea.

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In February this year, Experian did something that “shocked” the credit score enthusiasts world (yes, such a world exists and they have a very vibrant and very knowledgeable community in the myFICO forums): they announced that they would no longer be offering Experian credit scores to myFICO users. Many on the myFICO forums were furious.

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Your FICO credit score is increasingly becoming one of the most important numbers in your life. I’ve written about what’s in your FICO credit score as well as how to get FICO credit score estimates, but never how to get the actual three-digit FICO score calculated by one of the bureaus.

While the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA) and Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) did wonders to shed light on the credit reporting industry and the data they are collecting on all of us, the light wasn’t bright enough. There is no way for you to get a free FICO credit score unless you sign up for a trial with one of the bureaus or with Fair Isaac Corporation directly.

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For the first twenty years of your life, the most important measure of your future were your grades in school. Scored well, you got into better schools and tougher classes. Scored poorly and you didn’t. Just about the time I thought grades stopped mattering, I learned about my FICO credit score.

This little three digit number has caused so much consternation in its lifetime you’d think it was invented hundreds of years ago. Would it to surprise you to learn that the FICO score, for all its flaws, is actually an improvement on its predecessor? Before the Fair Credit Reporting Act in 1971 (full text of the FCRA), credit reporting agencies did whatever they wanted.

They collected whatever information they could find and sold it to whomever was willing to pay. The idea of a “credit score” didn’t emerge until the 1980s when Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO) put the data through a magical black box equation and spit out a three digit FICO score.

Pique your interest? Enough of the history lesson, let’s learn about FICO scores, how they are calculated (as best we know), and get on with this Foundation Series post!

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A few years back I saw Cap track his FICO scores as he went about his personal finance business. In that eight chapter epic (here’s chapter one, there’s a list of each chapter at the top of the post), his score fluctuated as he took on 0% balance transfers for arbitrage, took advantage of credit card offers, and otherwise just did typical consumer stuff. At the time, his tracking tool of choice was a service offered by Providian, nowadays there’s a better option – MyFICO.

MyFICO is run by Fair Isaac Corporation, the company that designed the FICO score equation. The main idea behind their services is that your credit score is one of the most crucial statistics you have about yourself and, much to their benefit, a reflection of your ability to repay debts. So many things depend on your FICO score these days. I’m sure you’re aware that your credit is pulled when you request a loan or a credit card, but did you know it’s used when you apply for a job? It’s used when you apply for an apartment? It’s used a lot more often than you probably think. While I personally don’t track my credit score every single day, many people do and when they do, they use MyFICO. If you’re less hardcore about your score, you might do as well just using free credit score estimates.

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Last Friday I discussed the CEO of LifeLock’s appearance on the Today Show and how many of the services they offer are things you can do yourself. So, rather than leave it all vague, here’s what you can do for a do it yourself solution.

AnnualCreditReport.com

Through AnnualCreditReport.com, you can request a copy of your credit report from each bureau once a year. I generally like to stagger it every 4 months so you can keep up to date absolutely free. For example, get your Experian in January, then your TransUnion in May, then your Equifax in September, then Experian again the following January.

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