Do you lose points for disputing something?

[Hortilux]

I have score watch and just got an alert. I dropped 9 points, reason being delinquent account. The weird part is that the account was already on my report as negative the only change being I disputed it. So am I correct in thinking that I lost points for disputing something?

[llecs]

It's always possible to lose points while disputing something. YMMV on what was disputed.

I'll add that whenever you get a SW for any score change, know that the change is a NET change and doesn't always match up to the reason behind the alert. You might have had other things happening in the background outside of the dispute like increased balances, account changes, and so on which could have resulted in a net 9 point loss.

[Anonymous]

I thought FICO just ignores any accounts under dispute.  So depending on which account, it can help or hurt.

[llecs]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I thought FICO just ignores any accounts under dispute.  So depending on which account, it can help or hurt.

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FICO fully scores all CAs and PRs while disputed.

In a dispute of OC accounts only, FICO will ignore certain aspects of the TL during a dispute like the balance, CL, and payment history. It's possible to lose points on a CC account being disputed, for example, if the util helped your overall credit. Other aspects like mix of credit, scoring bucket, and account age are fully scored during a dispute.

Once the dispute clears, then you can have a messy situation depending on what updates. Some OCs/CAs like to update (or rather are mandated to update) their TLs once the dispute clears. It's not uncommon to see the DOLA, reported date, balances, added lates, etc. change as a result of a dispute and that can cause a loss. And of course once the dispute clears, those OC accounts are fully scored and that can cause a loss after receiving a temporary bump due to the dispute. Even deleted charge-offs due to a dispute can result in a net loss, especially if old.