✅ Credit Unions, Banks or Online Lenders only pull credit reports from 1 bureau, not all 3, for all applications except for home loans. Uncle Sam requires lenders to pull all 3 for a mortgage, and the lenders are trying to change that to reduce costs. They spend $200 to pull all 3 reports.
❓ If you are going to get a car loan, personal loan or a credit card.
✅ Check and see which of your scores is the highest. If you only have a score with 1 credit bureau that is just fine.
✅ Next, call around to credit unions and ask them which bureau they use and choose one that uses the bureau with your highest score.
✅ TransUnion is the bureau that most often has the highest scores because they accept aged rent and utilities from 3rd party services.
✅ Equifax is second most common because they accept aged rent from 3rd party services.
🚩 Experian is the least common high score because they don’t work with 3rd parties that report aged accounts. The Experian Boost service only reports back as far as your bank account enables them to view your payments, often only a few months. Many users that use Experian Boost see a score drop because their credit age goes down reporting new accounts.
✅ We recommend the following credit unions that use the same TransUnion credit score you see on the Credit Karma App: Alliant Federal Credit Union, Navy Federal Credit Union.