Disputes caused my EQ report to start reporting incorrectly...?

[Anonymous]

So two things happened in the past month:

- I sent disputes in for each of my credit cards which had late payments
- I paid all credit cards down to 0% except for 1 which I paid down to 6%

In the last 2 days, my new balances all reported to EQ and my EQ FICO08 score went up to 682

This morning, however, I got alerts that my EQ report was updated for each credit cards and that my balance on each card INCREASED back to what it was before I paid them down!!

My guess is each credit card company responded to the dispute letter before I paid my account down and sent their response letter with my balance at the time (I wasn't disputing the balance - just the late payment)....so now all my balances are significantly wrong.

How do I fix this without needing to wait another month for the CC to report again?  I am trying to purchase a home this summer so that I can close before school starts and this is going to make my score drop and I can't really wait an extra month+ to try to get pre-approved

[Anonymous]

What ever you do..do not dispute your bal..I can say this with full knowledge... it can screw you up, it happened to me

I went thru CRs in April and found 5-7 lines reporting lower CL (all had been increased 3/4 wks prior) and higher balances (payments made in 3-4 wks not showing), Because of that they were showing a very high UTI

 I sent in a dispute (online) on each CR Apr 28th and am still waiting for them to come off (May 28).

I did  IRRL and closed May 17 (app went in May 4) no effect, but they only did SP

I did a CLI for NFCU on May 12 and was told it was going to review

I got denial letter and did a recon on Friday (May 19) and was told "Because of the active disputes at all three CBs, we can not do an accurate credit analysis at this time" and they recommended I apply again sometime after disputes are updated

I could kick myself..in fact I already did a yoga move to try! If I had only waited patiently for them to update and NOT DISPUTE CLs & Bal I would be a much happier camper

[Revelate]

Disputing balances basically gets you nothing but potential trouble, disputing legitimate late pays isn't recommended either, and disputing while headed into a mortgage, bleck.

In particular re: balances,

1) The creditors have 30 days to respond.

2) The vast majority of creditors update balances again with 30 days.

Ergo, they won't do anything except ignore it, and your account will be in dispute which from a scoring perspective can be all sorts of wierd.  The only material reason I can really come up with getting balances to update sooner is when you're going through a mortgage process, and that's what a Rapid Rescore is for (and I'd certainly recommend everyone prettying up their revolving util before they go talk to a lender anyway).

Everything else, just wait a bit, they will update.

Seph: see if you can get the disputes cancelled by calling the bureaus would be my recommendation, then you can talk to your LO on it.  How big of a paydown are we talking anyway?

[Anonymous]

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@Revelate wrote:

Disputing balances basically gets you nothing but potential trouble, disputing legitimate late pays isn't recommended either, and disputing while headed into a mortgage, bleck.

In particular re: balances,

1) The creditors have 30 days to respond.

2) The vast majority of creditors update balances again with 30 days.

Ergo, they won't do anything except ignore it, and your account will be in dispute which from a scoring perspective can be all sorts of wierd.  The only material reason I can really come up with getting balances to update sooner is when you're going through a mortgage process, and that's what a Rapid Rescore is for (and I'd certainly recommend everyone prettying up their revolving util before they go talk to a lender anyway).

Everything else, just wait a bit, they will update.

Seph: see if you can get the disputes cancelled by calling the bureaus would be my recommendation, then you can talk to your LO on it.  How big of a paydown are we talking anyway?

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I had paid two separate cards from 40% util to 0%. A 3rd card had just received a credit limit increase of $250 (went from $750 to $1000). Today the util went back to 40% and the CL reverted to $750.

I will try making some phone calls tomorrow to see if I can get it sorted - worst case I'll need to wait until they all report again