Who Do You Want to Believe -- Equifax or the U.S. Census?

The Chicago Tribune is running a Reuters story describing a study from Equifax that student loan write-offs totaled $3 billion in the first quarter of 2013. It's an impressive study. According to the story, "Equifax analyzes data from more than 500 million consumers to track financial trends."

Yes, according to the article, Equifax has managed to find about 184 million more people than the U.S. Census says are living in the United States. The credit reporting companies appear to throw around the "500 million" figure as their global reach, not their U.S. database. Does anybody bother to do any reporting anymore?