Gap updating wrong account?

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

I have two GAP accounts reporting on my credit reports. The first has a status of "Closed" has "lost or stolen card" in the remarks, I'm guessing I must have lost the card and requested a replacement one. The second account is "Open" and only has payment history from 2010 onwards, the first has a history from 2006 onwards. Again, I'm guessing the card must have been reported lost in 2010. I still have my replacement GAP card and use it every now and then.

I have a 30 day late from 2009 showing up on the "Closed" account, so I sent a GW letter to GE/GAP. I got a reply in my email today that they considered my request and have sent me their response by post. The first thing I did after reading their email was to pull my report to see if I can see any changes. To my surprise my "Open" account now  has the following creditor remarks "account information disputed by consumer. Meets FRCA requirements".

I had a couple of questions:

1) Is my letter to GAP a form of "dispute"? I've heard that you can't get credit if anything on the file is in dispute. I certainly did not try to dispute..it was a GW letter...

2) Do the remarks in my "Open" account indicate that GAP has agreed to my request?

3) Why does my "Open" account have this remark. The payment history of the open account only starts from 2010. The request was for a 30 day late in Feb. 2009 that was only showing on the closed account. Will I need to send GAP or each CRA another request pointing this out?

4) This is the first that I've written a GW letter, and I'm wondering if i messed things up somehow.... please help!

Confused...

[llecs]

I've had some creditors do that too, meaning marking a dispute upon receipt of a GW. They'll review it and will eventually remove that comment. In the meanwhile, FICO will ignore the payment history, balance, and  CL which could help or hurt your credit depending on your situation. I'd sit tight.

You can get credit while an account is listed as disputed. I've received a mortgage and CCs with a dispute comment. Mortgage lenders tend to ask you to remove the comment in some situations though.

"Open" should refer to the account type, as in open-ended (aka scored as revolving). 

Based on your post, if you were late in 2009, then it is reporting accurately. Personally I would not do anything at all. FICO largely stopped scoring that late plus there's a high risk of Gap deleting the closed account all together which may or may not hurt your AAoA and score.

[Shogun]

+1  The affect of that 30 day late from 3 years ago has diminished.  The account has pretty good age on it, you'd most likely be better just to leave it be.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your reply. I just have 2 accounts with "lates" so I sent GW letters to both (GAP and BoA).  BoA had a 30 and 60 day late in Aug and Sept 2009 respectively. Have not heard back from them yet since this all happened two weeks ago.

I really enjoy reading this forum and I thought I was actually doing something good!!!

Funny thing is that the two lates are on my "Closed" BoA account also since I lost my wallet with all cards in 2010 and I have a few duplicate accounts as a result. I wonder what if BoA will do the same thing that GAP did ....ie put my open account in dispute vs the closed one.

So I should just leave the dispute to work itself out without caring one way or the other? Any idea how long that will take for the dispute remarks to fall of the report?