Yeah I've had difficulty renting apartments for 8 years because "LeasingDesk" falsely reported that I owed a past landlord $36,000. No one ever told me this is why my applications always faced long delays, additional scrutiny, increasingly insane documentation requirements, and huge security deposits.

Finally I asked my most recent apartment complex "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" and they were like "uhh this report..." and I spent 3 months getting LeasingDesk to deny, deny, and finally admit/accept my claim that they had bad data.

It was a nightmare to get it fixed. They just said "No, the data is correct because we called your old apartment complex and they said it was correct." Because LeasingDesk was acting in good faith I could only sue my old apartment complex for misreporting it, I couldn't use CFPB to force LeasingDesk to fix it.

So yeah, its not just Experian/TransUnion/Equifax....there are dozens and dozens and dozens of data brokers acting as credit bureaus. Right now the only protections consumers have from them come from the CFPB but if that's ever abolished we'll only have lawyers and torts.

And before that large companies would keep their own records. My dad needed to put down a 3-figure deposit for his first phone line in the 70s because someone with the same first name and last name who lived in the same town as he went to college regularly racked up over $100 per month in long-distance bills.