Dispute question

notyou · ‎03-02-2012

I posted in depth about this before, but have a follow up question.

Before I knew better, I disputed a late payment from Aug of 2008 from Zales/Citi. I then sent them a goodwill letter. (yes, I know I did it wrong!) So, Zales sent me a letter saying their information was accurate blah blah blah. (I still don't believe it but it's just not worth the hassle) They also said they have reported it to the CRA's as a disputed account. Does this impact my score? There is a note on the account that says consumer disputes this information. However, like I said I disputed it through the CRA's as well, but they haven't finished their "investigation" yet so I don't know if that is from my dispute or from their "report"

Thanks in advance!

fused · ‎03-02-2012

Moving to the rebuilding forum.

notyou · ‎03-02-2012

Sorry. I didn't realize it should have went there. I'm not really rebuilding because I have a good credit history. I just didn't want the late payments on my CRA as I don't think they were 30 days late.... I should have left well enough alone!

llecs · ‎03-02-2012

@notyou wrote:
I posted in depth about this before, but have a follow up question.

Before I knew better, I disputed a late payment from Aug of 2008 from Zales/Citi. I then sent them a goodwill letter. (yes, I know I did it wrong!) So, Zales sent me a letter saying their information was accurate blah blah blah. (I still don't believe it but it's just not worth the hassle) They also said they have reported it to the CRA's as a disputed account. Does this impact my score? There is a note on the account that says consumer disputes this information. However, like I said I disputed it through the CRA's as well, but they haven't finished their "investigation" yet so I don't know if that is from my dispute or from their "report"

Thanks in advance!

If the dispute is showing as active within the comment field of your CR, then FICO will ignore the balance, the CL, and the payment history. This can result in your FICO going up or down, depending on your credit and how it reports. Once the dispute is completed, then usually the score will return to where it was. And then there are times the OC can update the account in a way to cause the score to change even more like added lates, removed lates, changing of account statuses, etc.

notyou · ‎03-02-2012

Yes, My score took a 20 point nose dive.

Once the dispute with the CRA's is finished, will it still show disputed if Citi is reporting it that way? If it will, how do I get that removed?

llecs · ‎03-02-2012

Yikes.

Currently, the comment should say something like "Account in dispute - Reported by subscriber" or "Account in dispute - reinvestigation in progress" or something like that. It'll vary from CRA to CRA. Once the dispute ends, rough 30-45 days later tops, then the dispute comment will either completely disappear or change to the past tense of "disputed" like "Account disputed; meets FCRA requirements" or something along the lines of "account disputed". Assuming nothing at all has changed anywhere within that TL or your CR, then your score will rebound.

Now in some cases, the OC can change their reporting to add lates, add other negative comments, or delete entirely and that can cause a score to change even more. YMMV. Also in some rare cases, the OC does not update the comment and FICO will continue to score it as if the dispute were active. I had a redeemed repo like that. I kept sending GWs and with each GW they updated the TL as being in dispute. FICO ignored the history and artifically increased the score for a while. It is possible to dispute the dispute, but I'd wait a full 45 days before considering anything.

notyou · ‎03-03-2012

OK Thanks. I really appreciate the replies.

Unfortunately for me.... I closed the account as well. I didn't realize that it would hurt me. I closed it with a zero balance, but it was my oldest account. (note to self, read fico forums before going willy nilly with credit report!) I thought I knew a little bit about credit and scoring... sadly I knew just enough to make myself dangerous! Lesson learned for sure.

I will just wait it out and stop messing with stuff! I'm not even going to bother with care credit. I'll just bite the bullet and pay for the dental treatment myself.

llecs · ‎03-03-2012

Well, closing it would have done that since doing so will rmove it from utilization calcs (just like a dispute would). You can fix the drop by paying down remaining CC util.

A dispute will sometimes remove closed accounts so be careful.

Ideally, never close a CC, unless there are fees or something along those lines. Use it every 3-4 months, PIF, and shelve it (in hindsight). It still factors into your history though and it'll still report for the next 10 yrs.

notyou · ‎03-08-2012

My scored rebounded this morning and my TU took a 32 or 31 (I can't remember now!) jump! Yay!