There are several local and regional credit bureaus that gather credit report information about your credit habits directly from all of your creditors. When a person applies for a credit card and provides his personal information such as name, address, telephone number to the card company, the company contacts a credit reporting agency to review the credit report information of the person. If the person's application is approved by the company, then the company gives information of the person to the credit reporting agency. The credit reporting agency also refers to other public records of the person to check the validity of the credit report information. All the transactions made by the person in connection to the credit, is reported to the credit reporting agency and these are recorded and form part of their credit report information.

Items that that are included in a person's credit report information include:

* Personal identifying information - All personal details of the person, such as name, birth date, address, telephone number, social security number, current and previous employers? information, spouse name and other family details are standard credit report information.

* Credit history - This credit report information is regarding the person's bill-paying history with banks, retail stores, finance companies and others who have granted credit. It includes credit report information about each account he has. Including when it was opened, what type of account it is, how much credit it includes (or the amount of the loan), monthly payment records etc. If the account is closed or the loan has been paid off, then that is detailed in the credit report information. If there were any late payments and misuse of funds, then this also appears in the credit report information.

* Public records- This provides credit report information about the person's worthiness. Records such as tax payments, court records etc are all included in the credit report information.

* Report enquiries-This section of the credit report details all of the credit granters who have received the person's credit report information. It also includes the list of other companies who are authorized to view the credit report information.

* Dispute statements- this section of the credit report information includes any statements that has been made disputing the information on the report

The information that does not appear in the credit report includes bank account balances, race, religion, health, criminal records, income, driving records.