A collection agency is able to post an item to the credit bureau (that is, Trans Union Services and/or Equifax Canada), as long as there is reasonable belief that the debt is true valid.

If the agency has a social insurance number and/or date of birth, this makes the likelihood of matching it to the consumers' credit bureau much higher, but they do not need that information. As long as they can provide a last known address with a postal code, the credit bureau will make an attempt to match it to the correct file.

In many cases, there is the issue of "garbage-in-garbage-out", where various creditors might report different information (married names vs. maiden names, misspelled addresses, etc), causing a consumer to have more than one credit rating. However, if the credit bureau discovers such a thing, they will make every effort to merge the records together (and mark aliases, AKA, etc).

Everyone should get a copy of their credit bureau at least once a year to see what is on there.

Trans Union Services 1-800-663-9980
Equifax Canada 1-800-937-4093

In Nova Scotia the cable company, phone Company and the power company can report it to the collection section of your credit file if you owe them.

No, there is no truth to it.

I heard awhile ago that a company such as a cable/internet/phone company, or any other company which you owe a debt to where you did not provide your social insurance number to, and/or where a credit check was not performed to open the account, cannot then report the debt to a credit bureau if it is outstanding.... any truth to that?

I have an outstanding debt owed to a cable company. I did not provide my SIN to them or get a credit check done when I opened my account. Just wondering if it's true that they actually can't report this to my credit file because no credit check was performed?

Thanks!