Clarification on disputed items on CR.

[Anonymous]

So hey all, I have a question that kind of has multiple parts. To make a long story short, I have 3 different old student loans from AES/PHEAA that have late payments showing, ranging from 60-90 days each, and from mid/late 2009 to early 2013. In each case, they were supposed to be in deferrment when in fact, they were not coded as such. I had not gotten any notice of this in any case, so on 3 separate occasions when the school and they were supposed to be "communicating" so they wouldn't go late, this wasn't happening.

I tried to dispute these, all the way up to the Ombudsman for the DOE. But, they apparently stuck to their guns, saying since they didn't have the deferrment paperwork, that they will not remove the lates. I was able to file the paperwork on these occasions to get them current and now for the past 3 years or so, it's been pays as agreed, no lates etc. So I placed disputes on each one of the 3 line items.

So my question is, if I have these three items disputed on my credit report, am I not only disputing the lates, do I also not get the benefit of having the good payment history since? Does the dispute make is so that nothing at all for that line item is factored into the score whether positive or negative?

Reason for the question is that I'm in the beginning stages of applying for a mortgage, and I've been instructed to remove the disputes. So, my concern is that by removing the disputes, it will obviously lower my scores. However, I'm wondering if having established 3+ years of positive payment history, maybe this will offset some of the negatives from the late payments?

Any thoughts and/or help? Thank you.

[silkysean]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

So hey all, I have a question that kind of has multiple parts. To make a long story short, I have 3 different old student loans from AES/PHEAA that have late payments showing, ranging from 60-90 days each, and from mid/late 2009 to early 2013. In each case, they were supposed to be in deferrment when in fact, they were not coded as such. I had not gotten any notice of this in any case, so on 3 separate occasions when the school and they were supposed to be "communicating" so they wouldn't go late, this wasn't happening.

I tried to dispute these, all the way up to the Ombudsman for the DOE. But, they apparently stuck to their guns, saying since they didn't have the deferrment paperwork, that they will not remove the lates. I was able to file the paperwork on these occasions to get them current and now for the past 3 years or so, it's been pays as agreed, no lates etc. So I placed disputes on each one of the 3 line items.

So my question is, if I have these three items disputed on my credit report, am I not only disputing the lates, do I also not get the benefit of having the good payment history since? Does the dispute make is so that nothing at all for that line item is factored into the score whether positive or negative?

Reason for the question is that I'm in the beginning stages of applying for a mortgage, and I've been instructed to remove the disputes. So, my concern is that by removing the disputes, it will obviously lower my scores. However, I'm wondering if having established 3+ years of positive payment history, maybe this will offset some of the negatives from the late payments?

Any thoughts and/or help? Thank you.

---

The lesser of 2 evils since you are applying for mortgage that's true they will want any and all dispute comments removed or they won't move foward.I doubt if having the words you disput lowers the score or keeps it higher because I'm pretty sure the account is still calculated in scores.But if for some reason it isn't then it will drop it but I'm sure it shouldn't change your scores.The positive is you have 3 plus years of good credit history I'm sure no matter what you still will have to explain situation and why it happened etc.. And for your fico scores I hope you pulled the 3b score report with actual Mortage scores,Bankcard scores,auto scores and fico 8 scores.Good luck 

[Revelate]

In the mortgage process you generally have no choice but to remove disputes and dispute remarks.

There's really no way to tell whether the lines are being discounted or not without getting them out of dispute.  I'd resolve the disputes and then see where your mortgage scores are.  Lates aren't the end of the world and if you have 2-3 years clean without those lates you'd likely have a higher score than what your siggy suggests honestly unless you have other negatives on your file would be my estimate unless your revolving utilization is out of whack.

[Revelate]

---

@silkysean wrote:

The lesser of 2 evils since you are applying for mortgage that's true they will want any and all dispute comments removed or they won't move foward.I doubt if having the words you disput lowers the score or keeps it higher because I'm pretty sure the account is still calculated in scores.But if for some reason it isn't then it will drop it but I'm sure it shouldn't change your scores.The positive is you have 3 plus years of good credit history I'm sure no matter what you still will have to explain situation and why it happened etc.. And for your fico scores I hope you pulled the 3b score report with actual Mortage scores,Bankcard scores,auto scores and fico 8 scores.Good luck 

---

Actually disputes are seriously wierd beasts and aren't well understood by consumers and maybe not the bureaus; they can do everything upto and  including discounting the tradeline from all scoring calculations.  

Also apparently dispute remarks have done this before years after the disputes were filed by some anecdotal reports here, and the automated underwriting systems are a no-fly zone for mortgage process with even remarks on there.  I always thought the GSE's mandates about dispute remarks were stupid before that, but hard to say now.

[silkysean]

---

@Revelate wrote:

---

@silkysean wrote:

The lesser of 2 evils since you are applying for mortgage that's true they will want any and all dispute comments removed or they won't move foward.I doubt if having the words you disput lowers the score or keeps it higher because I'm pretty sure the account is still calculated in scores.But if for some reason it isn't then it will drop it but I'm sure it shouldn't change your scores.The positive is you have 3 plus years of good credit history I'm sure no matter what you still will have to explain situation and why it happened etc.. And for your fico scores I hope you pulled the 3b score report with actual Mortage scores,Bankcard scores,auto scores and fico 8 scores.Good luck 

---

Actually disputes are seriously wierd beasts and aren't well understood by consumers and maybe not the bureaus; they can do everything upto and  including discounting the tradeline from all scoring calculations.  

Also apparently dispute remarks have done this before years after the disputes were filed by some anecdotal reports here, and the automated underwriting systems are a no-fly zone for mortgage process with even remarks on there.  I always thought the GSE's mandates about dispute remarks were stupid before that, but hard to say now.

---

Yeah I agree it's weird.And every file different I noticed after removing my dispute comments after a couple years because of theft/fraud until deleted it didn't really change but then again couldn't really get credit so scores stayed same so correct it was a general assumption but someone with credit it might make a difference but hopefully Op can get his mortgage and scores don't really change 

[Anonymous]

I will say that there are other factors contributing to my scores-not just the student loans. I have money on a couple different cards, sort of spread out, and have been paying them down. I have 7 cards, and balances on 3 of them.

I also found out, just yesterday, that there is a collection account listed on my report (Equifax at least, I don't know EX or TU status yet), that is not mine, but a family member with the same name, from a Verizon account they disagree with the balance about. Which-in related matter I noticed a 43 point drop in my EQ score about a month ago, with the MyFICO alert attributing it to a $29 balance increase on one of my cards. I couldn't figure out why $29 would cause such a drop, but this must have been when they put the account on the report.

From a strategy standpoint-I think I may be best off to consolidate thes balances as much as possible, obviously I'm already working to get this account removed, and work on removing the disputes. I can't do anything about the reporting from AES/PHEAA, as they won't budge. But, hopefully with the payment history being entirely positive for 3 years, consolidated balances, and etc, that this will help offset some/any/all of the possible drop.

When I put the disputes on, it did raise my scores a good bit-though I don't recall exactly how many points. Like 40 or 50. But this was without, also, the payment history at the time.

Thanks for all the input folks. Much appreciated, really is.

[Anonymous]

An update here. I called the three amigos, er, bureaus on Tuesday. and by now all of the dispute remarks have been removed. It did drop my scores about 30 points each for the three. They had previously been what is in my sig, give or take a few points any given day. Now, stands at 634,626,672 (EQ, TU, EX respectively).

However, the good news is, that the three mortgage scores are (again in same order) 698,704,701. So, apparently the dispute remarks didn't affect my mortgage scores much, if at all. It may have been zero change, as I don't check them day to day, but know that's about where they've been recently.

Just thought I'd update here. I like to give people as many data points as I can, for those it may be helpful for.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

An update here. I called the three amigos, er, bureaus on Tuesday. and by now all of the dispute remarks have been removed. It did drop my scores about 30 points each for the three. They had previously been what is in my sig, give or take a few points any given day. Now, stands at 634,626,672 (EQ, TU, EX respectively).

However, the good news is, that the three mortgage scores are (again in same order) 698,704,701. So, apparently the dispute remarks didn't affect my mortgage scores much, if at all. It may have been zero change, as I don't check them day to day, but know that's about where they've been recently.

Just thought I'd update here. I like to give people as many data points as I can, for those it may be helpful for.

---

That's good to hear. When my husband and I applied for our mortgage his report listed items being disputed. Our underwriter had him remove the disputes and he took a hit to his score as well but not to his mortgage score.