advice needed-- better to GW first and then Dispute if needed?

[Anonymous]

Hi everybody! I’m new to the forums and trying to make my way through the threads, so if there are threads answering my questions already I apologize, and would be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction!

Having said that, here are my questions:

1)      I have an account which shows up as a positive account with no lates on one report, it shows up with one 30-day late on another, and 2 30-day lates on the third. On the report that shows no lates the account is shown as being closed during September, when report #2 shows Sept. as being the only late month, followed by the account being closed In Oct.  In the 3rd report Sept. shows as late, October as OK, and then the 2 following months as late and then the account is closed. Should I dispute the 2 reports that list that account as negative? In all honestly, these are my husband’s accounts from a looooonnnng time ago (I’m trying to help him straighten out his credit), and he doesn’t remember which one is accurate. Of course we’d LIKE to believe it’s the positive one

2)      There are several accounts which show up as Charge-Off’s. My husband insists he’s paid them all after they were sent to collections, and now owes nothing on the accounts. On one report the charge-off’s just show up as charged off and/or written off, but on another report there are comments that the debt was charged off and then paid. Should I try GW letters first and then dispute the account statuses if that doesn’t work? Or just go right to disputing them?

3)      Is it possible to dispute a hard inquiry? For example, when we applied for a cap one card a while back they pulled his report on march 1st AND march 2nd. Do we get dings for BOTH of these? I don’t understand why they’d NEED to pull the report 2 days in a row to begin with.

4)      His current Equifax score is 671, and 678 TU, both from MyFico. He would like to apply for Amex Starwood—do you think he’d be approved? Average account age is 5 yrs 11 months, if it matters.

Above negative accounts are all 3-4 years old.

Again, I apologize if these questions have been addressed elsewhere!

Also,I’m happy to say that thanks to the forums here we’ve been approved for a Discover It recently! Finally on our way to having decent credit! Thanks so much to everybody here!

[RobertEG]

Ideally, one would suppose that the same account should report the same with each CRA, but that frequently is not the case.

Creditors are not required to report the same info  to each CRA.  The requirement is that whatever they do report must not knowingly be inaccurate.

They can choose not to report derogs to one or more CRA, or to voluntarily delete accurate info from one but not another.

Deletion from all CRAs is only required if a successful dispute has compelled their deletion.  Then they are required to delete from all CRAs.

So the issue of disptue relates to the accuracy of what is reported, not of what is not reported or the consistency of the reporting between the CRAs.

As for charge-offs, their reporting is of business action they took, and later payment or non-payment of the debt does not negate the fact that they did a charge-off, and thus does not compel its deletion.  If the debt was satisfied, the credtior must update the current balance to $0, but the CO remains. If theyhave failed to do so, I would first contact them and remind them of their responsibility to update the debt status to $0.  If they dont provide timely update, then I would send them a direct dispute.

As for the multiple inquiries, the FCRA places no limitation on the number or frequency that one may make inquiry for a consumer's credit file.

It may be unfair to make multiple inquiries within a very short period of time, but provided they had permissible purpose to make the inquriies, it would not be disputable on that basis.

As for approval based only on score, a lot will depend upon how deeply the potential creditor reviews the credit history.

They may choose to rely only on the three-digit score, but if the requested CL is relatively high, they will most likely do a manual review.

If they do so, other factors can be a show-stopper, regardless of FICO score, such as unpaid, delinquent debts that are still showing.

[Anonymous]

thanks, RobetrEG! I appreciate the clarification!