Experian & Dispute Comments

[Anonymous]

I really hate to start yet another thread on this, but I didn't want to hijack

I called all of the credit bureaus yesterday to get my dispute comments removed.  Transunion and Equifax did it instanantously, but Experian said that some of the disputes were relatively new (a couple of months ago), and that they would reach out to the creditors to ensure that they were closed.  They said it could take up to 30 days, but the creditor could respond much sooner.

Obviously, 30 days is'nt going to work for me, as I'm scheduled to close in 20 days.  Has anyone had experience with this?  Has it taken anyone a full 30 days for this to happen?

It's frustrating, because it's the same 3 creditors that Transunion and Equifax removed instantly, with no questions asked.  Did I just get a PITA person at Experian?

Thanks

[DallasLoanGuy]

never accept that answer.

just hang up and call back to see if you get a better answer

[Anonymous]

Argh.  I faxed them this afternoon.  Going to pull my report again tomororw to see if anything has changed.  Waiting 30 days is not an option.

[Anonymous]

Just to give future people a 'heads up.'

I called Experian an additional 3 times.  Each time, I talked to someone that was a bigger A**hole.  According to the folks at Experian, there is no Executive Customer Service Team anymore.  I talked to a normal rep, and eventually got escalated to a "Special Handling Team."  The guy I talked to constantly talked over me, telling me that "They didn't put the comments there, the creditor did."  It's BS, because the comments are exactly the same for each account.  Also, Transunion and Equifax deleted the very same comments in 30 seconds for each account.

I contacted each of the 3 creditors, and they were extemely helpful and pleasent (I am a good customer, with zero balances on all accounts and a perfect payment history).  They told me they were updating the accounts online while I was on the call, and they also sent me letters via e-mail stating the same.  I took those letters and uploaded them to Experian.  Hopefully they did make the updates in E-Oscar while I was on the phone with them, and if not, hopefully the letters will expedite.  

Just wanted to report an absolutely terrible experinece with Experian.  I was also EXTREMELY NICE to them on the phone - always a please and a thank you, and a 'good morning'- which is tough for me, being from NJ.

[Anonymous]

Wow what a hassle. I see all these posts about deleting the dispute comments but my LO has never asked me to do that. We've also been through our first round of underwriting and the conditional approval asked for many things, but never to delete the comments. I think because ours is a VA loan and credit scores are already too low to go through an AU system and get the approval so it's being manually underwritten. At this point, credit scores and an approval through AUS don't matter so they didn't ask us to remove them. I have a bunch of old disputes so I'm glad! Good luck! I think this is probably the stupidest part of getting the loan approved.

[Anonymous]

Yea, it depends on the lender. Many of them go off of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guidelines, since they plan on selling them in the secondary market in the future.  I'm currently working wiht 2 lenders (hedging my bets).  The large national lender is requring them completely gone from my report, while a more regional one says they'll take letters of explanation for them.

[Anonymous]

If this is bad etiquette,, I am sorry. New to this entire process, and had not heard anything about "Dispute Comments" on a credit report. 

Would you be able to explain in simple terms for someone who's head is already spinning with all of the new stuff I am learning?

[Anonymous]

When an account is disputed, a comment is typically placed on it, indicating that it is being disputed.  I say typically because there is absolutely no consistancy with this practice. Right now I'm disputing a collection account that I paid in full, and only 1 out of the 3 bureaus placed a comment.  The bureau can add the comment when you dispute something, or the creditor can place the comment if you dispute something with them directly.  When the dispute is over, most of the time (again, no consistancy), the comment is removed.  Many times it remains.

To give some background, 10-15 years ago, when all those bad mortgages were written, a trick was to dispute all of the negatives on your credit report.  During that dispute time period, bureaus remove it from the scoring algorythm, and synthetically inflate your score.  How the score is inflated, and exactly what is taken out of the scoring is somewhat unknown.

To combat this, FHA and many of the major lenders made it a rule that no account can be in dispute at time of closing.  Since they don't know if the comments were left there by mistake, or if there is an active dispute inflating your score, they make it required that they be removed.

Many many people have had great succes with merely calling the bureaus and asking that the comments be removed.  In my experience, with 2 out of the 3 bureaus, the first person to take the call was able to remove them immediately with no questions asked. They even made comments like "Oh, I guess you're trying to buy a house, huh?"....it seems that they are pretty used to removing the comments and its a common request.  Experian, on the other hand, refused to remove mine because it had only been 2 months since the account was disputed.  They insisted that I contact the creditor directly.  I contacted the creditor (in this case DSNB/Macy's), and they were very receptive, and put in the request for the comment to be removed.  In my case, it took 3 business days to actually reflect on my report.

Hope this helps!