The three bureaus and who reports to them

Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion are private companies. No one is required to send them information, so your three reports are usually similar but not identical.

That is why an account can help your score at one bureau and be invisible at another, and why a card that reports to only one bureau builds less than one that reports to all three.

Before opening anything meant to build credit, ask one question: does this report to all three bureaus? If the answer is no or unclear, it is not a credit builder.