FICO Scores with 79 Point Spread?

[iv]

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@LegalTender wrote:

Thanks for the tip iv.

I've got a Freeze on all CRAs, will that impact signing up for the service and/or will I need to remove it in order to receive the reports?

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You will definitely need to lift the EQ/TU freezes to sign up for CreditKarma.

You might need to lift the TU freeze for TrueIdentity - not quite sure.

I suspect, although I haven't tried it, that signing up directly with Experian probably doesn't need the EX freeze lifted... but I'm not sure.  If you try it, let us know!

[LegalTender]

OK I'll give it a try and report back. 

[LegalTender]

Actually, I already had signed up for the Experian reporting service (duh) ... [only I thought it only generated a free FICO score & wasn't aware  it offered a free monthly CR]. Didn't need to remove the security freeze for that. 

It doesn't list the CO AmEx account.

So something else must be genrating the 79 point FICO spread? It could be that one or more of my negative tradelines a.) haven't been reported, and/or b.) have already been removed early from TU?

One interesting entry was it showed 2 open accounts and I only have 1.

It shows the following:

JPMCB CARD

Date Opened: Aug 1997

Account Status: Open

Payment Status: No status

Status Updated: Aug 2009

Usage: -

Balance: -

Balance Updated: Aug 12, 2009

Credit Limit: -

Monthly Payment: -

Past Due Amount: -

Highest Balance: -

Terms: Revolving

Responsibility: Individual

Your Statement: -

Comments: Account in dispute-reported by subscriber. Account in dispute under Fair Credit Billing Act

I don't  have any recollection at all about this account? (I've had lots of cards over the years).

Should I do anything about this or is it fine as it's being reported? 

[iv]

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@LegalTender wrote:

Actually, I already had signed up for the Experian reporting service (duh) ... [only I thought it only generated a free FICO score & wasn't aware  it offered a free monthly CR]. Didn't need to remove the security freeze for that. 

It doesn't list the CO AmEx account.

So something else must be genrating the 79 point FICO spread? It could be that one or more of my negative tradelines a.) haven't been reported, and/or b.) have already been removed early from TU?

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Likely. Only way to know for sure is to pull current versions of those reports - drop the freezes temporarily, and get your CreditKarma and TrueIdentity accounts set up.

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@LegalTender wrote:

Status Updated: Aug 2009

Comments: Account in dispute-reported by subscriber. Account in dispute under Fair Credit Billing Act

I don't  have any recollection at all about this account? (I've had lots of cards over the years).

Should I do anything about this or is it fine as it's being reported? 

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With a last-update date of Aug 2009, it may just disappear on it's own within a few weeks (unlike the 7.5 year removal of negative items, this isn't required by law, but the CRAs generally remove closed positive accounts after 10 years).  But since it's reporting as Open...

The fact that it's reporting as Open is likely a glitch (possibly related to it still having a dispute comment, and possibly actually being in dispute status... although it really shouldn't be.)

You could ask Experian to remove the dispute status/comment... it's likely that the account will just disappear at that point.  But if you're lucky, it'll remain as a "zombie" open account, boosting your AAoA and AoOA, without any other (positive or negative) effects.

[LegalTender]

" But if you're lucky, it'll remain as a "zombie" open account, boosting your AAoA and AoOA, without any other (positive or negative) effects."

So it seems like the best response is to just do nothing and allow it to remain, and in some small way contribute to account age data?

Is there any potentially negative issue or repurcussion in having 'consumer disputes' noted on my CRs? 

[iv]

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@LegalTender wrote:

So it seems like the best response is to just do nothing and allow it to remain, and in some small way contribute to account age data?

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If it doesn't just disappear by itself next month, I'd (try to) get the dispute comment removed.

Worst case, the account just disappears then anyway, best case, it stays there indefinitely as "open".

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@LegalTender wrote:

Is there any potentially negative issue or repurcussion in having 'consumer disputes' noted on my CRs? 

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Yes. For one thing, if the account is ACTUALLY still marked as in dispute (shouldn't be possible... but...), then it's being excluded from scoring anyway, and not helping you.

For another, if you ever did decide in the future to apply for a mortgage, it's likely that they would ask to have the dispute comment removed.

(Plus it just looks bad... the only time I'd want to see a dispute comment on my report is during an actual, current dispute.)

Up to you, though.  I'd try to remove the comment, and if that also removes the account - eh... it normally would have been gone by now anyway.

[LegalTender]

I intend to pull all three CRs but want to allow a little time for my EE request to update.

I'm still a little unclear on the role 'disputes,' either present or past, have on a CR.

For ex. in my case my only open CC (Discover) has these comments from my most recent CRs:

Equifax 2019/4

04/2017 Consumer disputes this account information
01/2018 Account previously in dispute – now resolved by data furnisher 

03/2018 Account previously in dispute – now resolved by data furnisher 

01/2019 Account previously in dispute – now resolved by data furnisher 

02/2019 Account previously in dispute – now resolved by data furnisher 

03/2019 Account previously in dispute – now resolved by data furnisher 

Account previously in dispute – now resolved by data furnisher 

Experian 2018/10:

Comment 

Account previously in dispute - investigation complete, reported by data furnisher 

... am I correct in that there's nothing I should be doing in regard to those dispute comments? To be honest I can't recall if I actually did dispute any items ... I vaguely recall maybe a single dispute, but not a series of disputes over several months.

[iv]

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@LegalTender wrote:

I'm still a little unclear on the role 'disputes,' either present or past, have on a CR.

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An actual active dispute will cause all or part of that tradeline to be removed from scoring.

A left-over comment mentioning a dispute (but without the dispute still being active) will likely make a mortgage underwriter ask for the comment to be removed (in case there is an actual active dispute), and it might have some effect during a manual review of your reports, but otherwise is meaningless, and has no scoring effect.

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@LegalTender wrote:

... am I correct in that there's nothing I should be doing in regard to those dispute comments?.

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Those comments do not appear to indicate an active dispute, and if the accounts are due to fall off shortly anyway, there's no real reason to jump through hoops trying to get them removed.

If they are on accounts that will (or may) last for much longer on your reports, then you may want to get them cleaned up.

[LegalTender]

After now having requested EE from all three CRAs all my negative tradelines should be removed. I'm waiting for the Equifax to get onboard and complete a temporary credit freeze lift so I can sign up to some of these free/inexpensive services to get my FICO scores. 

CreditScore.com (Experian) which was showing a FICO score of 570 about a week and a half ago is now showing a score of 802. That's 232 point increase ... a FICO score improvement of over 40%!

[Anonymous]

Nice!

Your increase was actually over 40% when you think about it...

The Fico score range that you're looking at is 300-850, or a 550 point span.  You moved from having 270 of those 550 points to 502 of those 550 points, which is really a Fico score gain of about 86%.