Contents
Introduction
Find out what credit bureau (formally known as consumer reporting agencies) Discover pulls for credit card applications. For the purposes of this post, we only looked at data from 2014 onwards. We are also only looking at cards issued by Discover and not cards that run on their payment network.
You can also read other posts in this series by clicking below:
Table Key & Combined Stats
To keep things easy, we will use the following acronyms.
EX = Experian
EQ = Equifax
TU = TransUnion
NI = No information
The number next to the acronym represents the number of data points we have. In total we have 448 data points sourced from the Credit Boards Credit Pull page. Of those applications:
- 112 or ~25% of all applications pulled an Experian credit report
- 233 or ~52% of all applications pulled an Equifax credit report
- 103 or ~23% of all applications pulled an TransUnion credit report
| Abbrevation | State Name | Credit Bureau Pulled |
| AL | Alabama | EX: 2 EQ: 3 |
| AK | Alaska | EX: 1 EQ: 1 |
| AZ | Arizona | EX: 1 EQ:4 |
| AR | Arkansas | TU: 2 |
| CA | California (CA) | EX: 19 EQ: 44 TU: 17 |
| CO | Colorado | EQ: 7 |
| CT | Connecticut | EX: 1 EQ: 4 TU: 1 |
| DE | Delaware | EQ: 1 TU: 1 |
| FL | Florida | EX: 10 EQ: 21 TU: 12 |
| GA | Georgia | EQ: 14 TU: 8 |
| HI | Hawaii | EX: 2 EQ: 1 |
| ID | Idaho | EX: 2 |
| IL | Illinois | EX: 16 TU: 5 |
| IN | Indiana | EX: 1 EQ: 4 |
| IA | Iowa | EQ: 1 |
| KS | Kansas | EX: 1 EQ: 2 |
| KY | Kentucky | EQ: 2 TU: 1 |
| LA | Louisiana | EX: 1 EQ: 4 |
| ME | Maine | EQ: 2 |
| MD | Maryland | EX: 2 EQ: 4 TU: 1 |
| MA | Massachusetts | EX: 2 EQ: 8 |
| MI | Michigan | EX: 2 EQ: 4 TU: 1 |
| MN | Minnesota | EX: 4 EQ: 6 |
| MS | Mississippi | EX: 1 EQ: 3 TU: 1 |
| MO | Missouri | EX: 1 EQ: 4 TU: 1 |
| MT | Montana | EQ: 1 TU: 2 |
| NE | Nebraska | EX: 1 |
| NV | Nevada | EQ: 8 |
| NH | New Hampshire | EX: 1 EQ: 1 |
| NJ | New Jersey | EQ: 9 TU: 1 |
| NM | New Mexico | EQ: 1 TU: 1 |
| NY | New York | EX: 7 EQ: 30 TU: 8 |
| NC | North Carolina | EX: 6 EX: 3 TU: 8 |
| ND | North Dakota | EQ: 1 |
| OH | Ohio | EX: 7 EQ: 11 TU: 2 |
| OK | Oklahoma | N/A |
| OR | Oregon | EX: 1 EQ: 2 TU: 1 |
| PA | Pennsylvania | EX: 3 EQ: 12 TU: 3 |
| RI | Rhode Island | N/A |
| SC | South Carolina | EX: 2 EQ: 3 TU: 1 |
| SD | South Dakota | EQ: 1 |
| TN | Tennessee | EX: 1 TU: 1 |
| TX | Texas | EX: 11 EQ: 30 TU: 15 |
| UT | Utah | EQ: 1 |
| VT | Vermont | TU: 1 |
| VA | Virginia | EX: 1 EQ: 5 TU: 2 |
| WA | Washington | EX: 2 EQ: 5 TU: 2 |
| WV | West Virginia | EQ: 1 TU: 1 |
| WI | Wisconsin | EX: 3 EQ: 1 TU: 5 |
| WY | Wyoming | N/A |
| DC | District Of Colombia | N/A |
What Happens If Your Report Is Frozen?
Discover won’t approve you with a frozen report, they also won’t accept a PIN to access a frozen report. Instead you’ll need to unfreeze your report first.
Our Verdict
As you can see Equifax is used more than half the time with the other two bureaus nearly being pulled one quarter of the time each. Discover doesn’t have a lot of cards worth considering, mainly just the Discover it & Discover it Miles (and possibly the Discover it Secured for people with bad credit).
Discover it miles in Nov. 2019 from Indiana. They pulled from EX, I was desperately hoping for an inquiry on my EQ report based on the above data points, but it wasn’t (EQ:4, EX:1, thinking that EX may be an error in reporting).
Alaska: EX
In North Dakota, Discover pulled Experian in November 2018.
DiscoverIt Cash Back: 11/12/2018 Georgia, Pulled Experian. Approved 12k
I was just approved for a DiscoverIT Chrome for Students card, and they pulled EQ. I live in NY.
Pulled Experian. Virginia. July 2018
CT – pulled EQ
NJ Resident. Discover tried to pull my experian but it was frozen, asked them (via chat) to pull my unfrozen equifax instead and they did. Approved in mid 2018.
+1 in CA. Discover prequal n/a due to EX freeze. Submitted anyway w/o prequal and got app pending phone call. Rep asked me to thaw EX, I offered PIN, but Rep declined PIN. I agreed to EQ, approved instantly.
MA resident, they pulled equifax in December of 2017 for the dicover it card.
In Arkansas they pulled Equifax and Trans. Denied due to “too many bankcards on file” (I have 12 open credit cards, for those wondering how many they considered too many)