What is going on - can someone please help!

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

I am new here and this is my first post. I am a complete newbie when it comes to credit. I started my credit building process 2 months back and looks like I am going nowhere. I wish I found this forum before I did anything stupid. But here is what happened.

Couple of months back, I read somewhere that I can dispute a negative item and it will come off (well after reading this forum, I came to know only incorrect items come off). So I disputed an old charged off account in a hope that it will just go away. It was a BofA CC account which I settled in March 2016. Before I filed for this dispute my FICO 8 score was 708 on Experian and in similar range on TU and EQ

Couple of weeks later, the dispute was resolved and my score droped by approx 60 points accross all 3 credit bureaus, Experian was at 642. The account was validated by the original creditor (I disputed in a hope that they won't lol). Now I am having a hard time to figure out what actually happened and why my score dropped? Shouldn't my score remain the same since it was an old account which was settled back in 2016, EVEN IF IT WAS VALIDATED? 

Moving forward, I filed a dispute with CFPB in a hope to get my score corrected. I recieved pre-typed answers from both Experian and Transunion. Equifax did some research and sent me following message through CFPB:

"The results are: This creditor has verified to OUR company that the prior paying history is being reported correctly. This creditor has verified to OUR company that the current status is being reported correctly. THE FOLLOWING FIELDS HAVE BEEN MODIFIED: *ADDITIONAL INFORMATION."

I was also able to pull up my old TU reports from Credit Karma and found out nothing was changed on this account except the *remarks* field was modified to show "Payment after charge off/collection, Dispute resolved; customer disagrees".

I am an Experian member and get my updates daily. So I was able to pull the dispute results, and it showed me "before" and "after" results of this dispute. There are no changes to the dates and amount. The only thing that's changed was reinvestigation info was added to "after" results. "Reinvestigation Info, This item was updated from our processing of your dispute in Apr 2018.".  

I really need your help to get my score corrected. What should I do, what is my next step? Should I just go to a lawyer and talk to him?

P.S. There were no changes AT ALL to my credit report at that point of time, except this dispute results. No missed payments, no collections, no change in balance reported. So the score drop was definitely because of the dispute.

TYIA for all your help! Would really appreciate all the suggestions. 

[Medic981]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Hello everyone,

I am new here and this is my first post. I am a complete newbie when it comes to credit. I started my credit building process 2 months back and looks like I am going nowhere. I wish I found this forum before I did anything stupid. But here is what happened.

Couple of months back, I read somewhere that I can dispute a negative item and it will come off (well after reading this forum, I came to know only incorrect items come off). So I disputed an old charged off account in a hope that it will just go away. It was a BofA CC account which I settled in March 2016. Before I filed for this dispute my FICO 8 score was 708 on Experian and in similar range on TU and EQ

Couple of weeks later, the dispute was resolved and my score droped by approx 60 points accross all 3 credit bureaus, Experian was at 642. The account was validated by the original creditor (I disputed in a hope that they won't lol). Now I am having a hard time to figure out what actually happened and why my score dropped? Shouldn't my score remain the same since it was an old account which was settled back in 2016, EVEN IF IT WAS VALIDATED? 

Moving forward, I filed a dispute with CFPB in a hope to get my score corrected. I recieved pre-typed answers from both Experian and Transunion. Equifax did some research and sent me following message through CFPB:

"The results are: This creditor has verified to OUR company that the prior paying history is being reported correctly. This creditor has verified to OUR company that the current status is being reported correctly. THE FOLLOWING FIELDS HAVE BEEN MODIFIED: *ADDITIONAL INFORMATION."

I was also able to pull up my old TU reports from Credit Karma and found out nothing was changed on this account except the *remarks* field was modified to show "Payment after charge off/collection, Dispute resolved; customer disagrees".

I am an Experian member and get my updates daily. So I was able to pull the dispute results, and it showed me "before" and "after" results of this dispute. There are no changes to the dates and amount. The only thing that's changed was reinvestigation info was added to "after" results. "Reinvestigation Info, This item was updated from our processing of your dispute in Apr 2018.".  

I really need your help to get my score corrected. What should I do, what is my next step? Should I just go to a lawyer and talk to him?

P.S. There were no changes AT ALL to my credit report at that point of time, except this dispute results. No missed payments, no collections, no change in balance reported. So the score drop was definitely because of the dispute.

TYIA for all your help! Would really appreciate all the suggestions. 

---

Welcome to the myFICO forums!

Sorry to hear about your missteps, however, you are in the right place now to get great advice on how to improve your credit. 

The first lesson you've learned is you only dispute errors or incorrect information on your credit report. 

What you need to understand is that there are a lot of factors that go into your FICO score. The FICO score is a snapshot of a moment in time as to how you are managing your credit. I am not sure what happened to cause your score to decrease so dramatically. My guess is that when BoA validated the settled account it was like ripping a band-aid off an old wound made it fresh again. It did not re-age the account but I think it placed more importance on the event as it had been re-validated. Others more knowledgeable will correct me as they read the post.

A lawyer is not going to be able to do anything more than you can do for yourself.

Ultimately, what a person needs to improve their FICO scores and build credit are three open credit cards (secured or unsecured) in good standing and one open installment loan in good standing such as a car, home, student, personal, share secured, or credit building loan. This combination is what the myFICO score theorists here have determined is what you need for optimal credit building and FICO score. You can have more CCs and more installment loans, however, this will not increase your FICO scores.

Next, is paying in full all of the credit card balances each month, before the posting date, except one. This is called the All Zero Except One (AZEO) method. The one credit card you allow to post a balance needs to be less than 8.9% of the credit limit of the card. So using one card each month to buy lunch, letting it report and then paying in full will maximize FICO scoring.

The installment loan will have its greatest impact on your FICO score when the amount owed is at its smallest such as a few months before the loan is paid in full. If you don't have an installment loan you can check into SelfLender or a Share Secured Loan at a Credit Union.

Keep in mind, building credit involves demonstrating that a person can handle credit responsibly. Having open, active accounts that are being paid on time is the fastest way to build good, solid credit.

As time passes, you can attempt a goodwill letter campaine asking BoA to remove the negative settled account from your credit file. I am afraid that when you disputed the BoA negative on your credit report that closed the door on this option for a while.

In the meantime keep reading the forums and learn all you can about how to manage your credit. Good Luck!

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for your reply! 

Yeah, I have been doing everything right since I came across this forum. I already have 3 credit cards and going to try AZEO. I also have a student loan open.

So basically, the charge-off account looks like a new one? Is there anything I can do about it? Wow! This is actually scary, so if someone disputes an account, if it gets validated their credit score will take a blow? Isn't there anything in FCRA to protect such thing from happening?

Once again thank you for your detailed response. Learning a lot thanks to this forum.

[Anonymous]

You question... is there anything in fcra to protect from this happening?

The answer is no. Because typically if something is inacurate a person would call or write the company reporting the inacurate information and clear it up there. (BOA in your case) If that doesn't resolve it then a person would dispute it through the bureau, then they would work their way up to the FCRA. This is IF what's being reported is actually inaccurate.

There is NO protection for falsely claiming an item is inacurate nor should there be in my opinion.

I hope that doesn't come across harsh ☺

I know you said there was no other changes to your reports but, are you sure? Is it possible your card utilization went up for example?

[Anonymous]

It happened to me as well!

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
You question... is there anything in fcra to protect from this happening?

The answer is no. Because typically if something is inacurate a person would call or write the company reporting the inacurate information and clear it up there. (BOA in your case) If that doesn't resolve it then a person would dispute it through the bureau, then they would work their way up to the FCRA. This is IF what's being reported is actually inaccurate.

There is NO protection for falsely claiming an item is inacurate nor should there be in my opinion.

I hope that doesn't come across harsh ☺

I know you said there was no other changes to your reports but, are you sure? Is it possible your card utilization went up for example?

---

haha!  That didn't come across harsh at all! I am learning a lot here!

I understand what you are saying, I shouldn't have disputed the account to begin with and I agree with you that FCRA shouldn't provide protection in such cases.

But as you mentioned, now that the account is validated and updated, the charge-off looks like new, which causes score drop. Doesn't it have same impact as renewing a debt on our credit score? Apart from the SOL and the fact that it will be removed by 2022.

Does this happen a lot? And it's sad that there is nothing we can do about it or even FCRA doesn't have any law regarding this. I believe, since the debt was old, it should've stayed the same way without affecting credit score. 

And no, there were no other changes to my credit file. Utilization was the same.

Really appreciate your help!

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

It happened to me as well!

---

Thank you for your reply! What steps did you take? Did you find any success? 

How much did your score drop when it happened?

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

It happened to me as well!

---

Thank you for your reply! What steps did you take? Did you find any success? 

How much did your score drop when it happened?

---

It was around 70 points or so. As others mentioned, it happened because the account was updated. Unfortunately, there is nothing really that you can do about it. You will just have to wait and the charge-off will start to age again. 

I am sorry, I couldn't be of much help. Hope others have some better suggestions. 

Good luck!

[bondsandloan]

As per my reading of RobertEG's (who is the master) posts on here, the points drop was due to the delinquency being Validated by the CA at a later date (when dispute was initiated).
Both of your disputes were unpaid collections?
CA don't validate delinquent debts every month (due to cost maybe?) and hence their impact on scores fall over time. Any dispute which then causes the CA to validate the delinquency as valid at a future date (dispute time) then causes the score drop as the aging of the validation is re-set. That continues until that validation ages again or delinquency falls off the CRs.

[gdale6]

Simple explanation the status date came current when they verified the info and Fico pulls from this date so in its eyes it looks like the CO just happened. As it ages back in time again your Fico will rise.