Dispute Weirdness...

[ScarletFever]

I received a Score Watch alert today, my score dropping 16 points because of a dispute! One of my accounts in dispute reported as such by Equifax. The weird part is that it seems totally arbitrary. I have disputed and had twenty deletes among the three CRA's, never having dropped during the process. Now it seems Eq doesn't want to work and play well with others. No new derogs, rebuckets, etc...After all my hard work, to get set back is frustrating. I fear that the info will "updated" to reflect a more recent history. I also have concern over why the dispute is being done now, after never having it done before..similar experiences? How can My Fico be so arbitrary? It seems that they are too erratic in their approach...Are the CRA'S fighting back? I have other disputes going on as well, but not listed by Scorewatch...

[llecs]

The drop occured because that account is not being factored into your FICO score during the dispute process. In other words, if it is removed from your CR, your score will remain lower. It is highly likely, assuming this is the only account your are disputing, that this is not a CA, but rather an OC. And if it is removed, your average age is lowered thereby causing this damage.

Dispute only as a very last resort.

[ScarletFever]

That is what is weird. I have had many disputes in the past, and have several going on currently. Never has my score taken a hit, despite accounts being removed.  Why now? Are CRA's/MyFico using a new strategy for consumers that continually challenge them?

[Anonymous]

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ScarletFever wrote:

That is what is weird. I have had many disputes in the past, and have several going on currently. Never has my score taken a hit, despite accounts being removed.  Why now? Are CRA's/MyFico using a new strategy for consumers that continually challenge them?

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What llecs posted is correct.  This is not something that has changed recently.

Perhaps the reason you never took a score hit when you disputed other accounts is that those accounts were actually hurting you overall.  In this case, it appears the acount you are disputing is helping more than it is hurting, so when it is temporarily removed from scoring, it causes your score to drop.

Belive it or not, very old accounts with only a few late payments associated with them usually help much more than they hurt.  A lot of people find this out the hard way, thinking that once that account is removed, along with all its late payments, they'll see their scores shoot up, only to see it drop due to the loss of the rest of the good payment history and possibly a drop in average age or length of credit history or a loss of credit mix.

[ScarletFever]

Cheddar:

All the accounts I have disputed were accounts that would hurt my score the most. For instance,   a couple of paid charge-off accounts of similar age. I have focused on those first. Never in the past has my score dropped, and there is little difference in the age of the accounts.

[Anonymous]

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ScarletFever wrote:

Cheddar:

All the accounts I have disputed were accounts that would hurt my score the most. For instance,   a couple of paid charge-off accounts of similar age. I have focused on those first. Never in the past has my score dropped, and there is little difference in the age of the accounts.

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I'm not sure what else to tell you, then.  The information you've been given is correct.  If your score went down during a dispute, then one of two things happened.

1) The account was helping you, even though you thought it was hurting you.

2) Something else on your report changed.

If you're absolutely positive that it's not #1 (although I'm not sure how you could be absolutely positive of that), then you might want to scour your reports line by line to see if it's #2.