Can You Dispute Negatives To Get Higher Score?

[Cotton_Britches]

Once I dispute negative errors on my accounts, will my score go up or something while those items are in dispute? The rep at Experian said not to apply for "new credit" while the disputes are pending. I'm confused as to why she would say that.

[Anonymous]

I disputed some things and saw my score go up a little (like very little) but I also applied for some new stuff around the same time (the disputes were done - but I can only do updates every so many days to see what happened - and I haven't been able to update  - so in my 'eyes' not everything has hit yet.......I'd wait to apply until you see what happens with the disputes - it won't take that long   (I wish I had waited just a week or two - so I could have seen the true effect)

[titanofold]

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@Cotton_Britches wrote:

Once I dispute negative errors on my accounts, will my score go up or something while those items are in dispute? The rep at Experian said not to apply for "new credit" while the disputes are pending. I'm confused as to why she would say that.

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Because the lender may ask you to renounce the dispute so that they can see what's really going on with your score. So, you end up getting 2 HP for 1 app.

[Cotton_Britches]

Does that apply to credit card lenders as well?

[RobertEG]

When you have a pending dispute, the FICO scoring algorithm is programmed to exclude certain information under the OC account while the dispute is pending.

Thus, your resultng score is temporarily affected.

If you apply for new credit during that period, the prospective creditor will not be aware that the score is temporatily effected unless they do a manual review of your credit report and notice the pending dispute.  When the amount of credit being sought is subtanatial, such as a mortgage loan, manual review is almost assured.

Many creditors, when aware of a pending dispute, will require conclusion of the dispute, and thus return to normal scoring, before they consider the score as part of their decision making. 

A very similar parallel is when a consumer has an AU account in thier file.

That automatically means that any score being reported is not representative of the consumer's own history, and if an AU is seen in a manual review, can lead to a potential creditor discounting or disregarding the value of the reported score in their decision making.  Mortgage lendors may require removal of AUs as part to their application process.