Credit grantors provide the bureau with information on how their credit customers pay their bills. The bureau assembles this information, along with public record information obtained from court houses around the country, into a file on each consumer. In return, credit grantors can obtain credit reports about consumers who wish to open accounts with them. There are over 1000 local and regional credit bureaus throughout the United States. These national agencies maintain centralized databases containing the credit records of more than 170-million consumers.
Credit bureaus generate over a half-billion credit reports a year.
In accordance with the written instruction of the consumer.