Credit Reports: Am I Missing Something?

Posted by Erioc (170.215.164.2) on February 18, 2004 at 12:46:17:

I have a question that is completely confounding me at the moment. Recently, as I talked about in a previous post, I was contacted by a collection agency regarding an alleged account. After the contact, and before I knew any better, I paid a local agency to pull a three-in-one credit report for me. This cost me money and a hard inquiry, but live and learn, I suppose.

After much reading on this forum and others, I felt that the advice of having a copy of my credit reports from the actual bureaus themselves would give me more information, as well as report numbers to facilitate a dispute. Here is where things have gotten interesting and confusing.

The three-in-one has more information on it than the report sent to me by the bureaus. The three-in-one shows the progression of the alleged debt from one collection agency to another, all with their own amounts that they say I owe. The bureau reports show only one listing for one collection agency. There is also a listing for another debt that I have no knowledge of that does not show up on the bureau reports. I suppose my question is this. Are there different “degrees” of credit reports that can be accessed? Have I perhaps stumbled upon a report that the average consumer normally has no access to? Or perhaps, and this is wishful thinking, have the bureaus taken it upon themselves to correct wrong information without me asking them?

If anyone has any insight or opinions on this, I would greatly appreciate their input. As always, thank you all for your attention and help.

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