8. Do credit reporting companies decide whether I should get credit?

No. Only credit grantors make lending decisions.

A credit reporting company’s business is credit reporting. It collects information from credit grantors such as banks, savings and loans, credit unions, finance companies and retailers. It stores this information in a computer database, then provides it to credit grantors when you apply for a new credit card or loan.

Each credit grantor decides what standards you must meet to be granted credit. The credit reporting company does not track the decision a credit grantor makes after ordering a credit report, favorable or not.

Many creditors use automated scoring models as tools to evaluate the data in a credit report. Credit reporting companies often provide the additional service of applying the models selected by the creditor to the data in the report. While the resulting scores are delivered with the credit report, they are not a part of the credit report. They reflect only the data in your credit history at that moment in time.