moneytalk
The History of Credit Bureaus
Part 3 of 3: Equifax
By Rich Ellis
Most people are familiar with Equifax than other
credit bureaus simply because of better marketing
and the amount of advertising they have. Equifax is
considered the leader when it comes to credit
reporting and credit reporting agencies.
Equifax was founded by Cator and Guy
Woolford, two brothers from Tennessee. Cator
was part owner of a grocery store which kept
credit history on their customers for the town’s
retail grocer’s association. In 1899 Cator convinced
Guy to move to Atlanta, Georgia with
him in order to start a new business. Guy at the
time was an attorney and his practice was not as
successful as he had hoped.
Atlanta was thriving and had shown that there
was a lot of opportunity there. The same year, the brothers
started Retail Credit Company. In the early stages of the business,
they sold a merchant’s guide that contained the credit records of many
citizens of the city.
In 1901, Retail Credit Company discovered that life insurance
was a more profitable business because at this time, insurance was
associated with credit. In 1913 Retail Credit Company was
incorporated and by 1916 the company added a mortgage division.
Fast Forward to 1970, the same year that the Fair
Credit Reporting Act was established, Retail Credit
Company’s credit files became automated. In 1971,
Retail Credit Company started to be publicly
traded on NYSE and as a result, there were many
errors discovered about it’s record keeping. This
caused the company to change it’s name to
Equifax.
Equifax now has access to millions if not
billions of people’s credit as well as millions of
medical histories of patients as well.
Equifax now has control of a number of
healthcare and insurance entities. As a consumer,
this should be concerning because your privacy
could be invaded without you even knowing.
Next issue we will be talking about Credit Repair
Agencies and what to look for when deciding on a company.
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