Citi goodwill response = dispute??

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I've been reading a lot on the forums here and have been learning a great deal. Back in December I was in the ER at the hospital on the due date of my credit card, and was physically unable to pay...anyway it went for 30 days and was reported late to the CB.

I sent Citi Cards a goodwill letter with a bunch of supporting documentation. I woke up this morning and they added a dispute your dad's credit card account on my credit reports. My score went up by about 70 points, as it looks like it is no longer factored in to the score. My question now is, should I wait 30 days for the investigation to complete? Is this standard procedure even for a goodwill letter? Or should I call them and start trying to get them to remove the dispute comments?

Thanks for all the advice.
Joe

[RobertEG]

It is common, although not proper, for a creditor to interpret a good-will request as a direct dispute.

That often occurs when the consumer includes arguments in their good-will request that contest the reporting in some manner.

Yes, you can pursue clarification that your communication was NOT a direct dispute, but only an informal request for their good-will deletion.

Your option.

However, if they have interpreted your communication as a direct dispute, then they are requried to complete their investigation within 30 days and send you a formal notice of results within 5 buinsess days thereafter.  Thus, the pending dispute flag must be removed within 40'ish days with no need for any further action on your part.

I would personally wait for their requried resolution of your direct dispute.  It might result in their decision to simply delete the reported delinquency.

[Anonymous]

So, some time has passed and citi removed the late from all my credit reports. Great news! There is also no longer a dispute flag.

What is interesting though, is that I had about 2 years of payment history for the credit card in question. It looks like they removed about 1.5 years of payment history, while at the same time changing the 30late (which happened just a few months ago) to an "on time" payment.

Any idea why that may have happened?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the update here and congratulations on getting that negative removed.

When creditors send in electronic requests to have accounts updated, sometimes screwy things happen.  It's not uncommon to see large portions of your payment history removed, or even see your payment history extended longer at times.  Ultimately, nothing matters aside from the fact that you now have a clean account (no delinquency) which is a HUGE win. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm really thankful that they removed the late. I sent it in to their executive office, and one of the admins called my cell phone a few days later letting me know they would take about 30 days to look into it. She also thanked me for adding all the supporting documentation (I believe this is what helped finally get it removed). She also acknoledged that someone else at Citi had added the dispute flag in error, since I was only asking for a goodwill adjustment...and noted that she would have the flag removed. This was my only late payment....after having it removed my score went from 680 to 755.

I just wanted to make sure that since this wierd "screwy" stuff happened (which I'm fine with) that there aren't going to be any issues in the future (I.e. I wake up one day, and it gets adjusted back to the way it was because someone at the CB found this "error"...or when I go apply for a mortgage they note something wierd...etc)

[Anonymous]

CONGRATS on your success with this! May I please ask, to whom or where did you send your Goodwill letter? Did you use PlanetFeedback.com?