A Loan Officer, after pulling your credit, can run your credit through one or our credit analyzer programs, and remove the inquiry and see if the score drops. These tools are pretty accurate. If it's an old dispute, meaning greater than 1 year old, the scores most likely won't drop or very little. But if the inquiry is fairly new, removing 1 or more can kill your credit score. I have seen it!
So here's the trick.
Remove or Resolve Disputes
If you are applying for a Conventional Loan, you MUST remove all disputes and comments. If you are applying for a FHA, VA, or USDA loan, you have some options.
1.) You can remove the disputes and comments but risk a drop in your credit score.
2.) You can resolve the dispute and your scores will not drop. Why? Because technically, to the credit bureau, the tradeline is still in dispute.
3.) You can elect to do nothing, and your loan will downgraded to a manually underwritten loan. Which will carry additional conditions, and some lenders could have higher rates and or fees.
Contact Numbers
Experian (714) 830-7000, No Customer support on weekends. In order to talk with a representative, if you are not on PST, you must call after 12pm Eastern time Monday-Friday otherwise you will not be able to reach someone because the menu won't give that choice to select. You will get a menu run-around.
TransUnion (800) 916-8800, No Customer support on weekends. You can call Monday-Friday during normal business hours.
Equifax (888) 548-7878, you can talk with a representative during the week and weekends. I don't know the exact hours but calling M-F during normal hours and weekends late morning early afternoon will get you a representative.
Follow these instructions:
When they answer they will ask you the reason for the call? Tell them you are buying a home and the lender is requiring that all disputes to need to be updated to show “Dispute Resolved Consumer Disagrees”. The Rep may or may not transfer you to another rep. If so, just tell the new rep your purpose for the call. They will ask you, which accounts. If you are uncertain, ask them to go through tradeline line by line.
They know what you are talking about and can and will take care of it. Tell the representative that your loan will be denied if this is not done within the next 48-72 hours. Then once this has been completed over the phone, ask to be transferred to a supervisor. The reason being is 95% of the time the representatives always leave one or two disputes unresolved. You can ask the supervisor to check to make sure all disputes are resolved.
NOTE: TU may not allow you to resolve the dispute, it depends on who you speak to. They may make you remove the comments completely. But try! Go up the chain of command if necessary. If not, just have them remove all comments or call back and speak with another Rep.
After the 48-72 hours, I encourage you to call back and confirm your request was completed. I want you to know that Equifax is notorious for not completing your request correctly. Time after time when the credit is re-pulled, Equifax still has disputes showing. So I strongly encourage you to make sure to take the extra step and call again. I recommend you call and ask for a Supervisor.
If you have better phone numbers, please list them.
Branch Manager - Specializing in FHA, VA, USDA, Conventional, Jumbo, Portfolio and Non-QM Loan Products.
