Thanks to advice given on this board, I have had 12 items (9 paid collection accounts, 2 paid charge-offs and 1 account that wasn't mine) removed from my credit reports in the past 3 months. I wanted to do as much as I could for free before resorting to Lexington or Junum. Now I have hit a snag. I have a Citibank charge off that was charged off in fall 1997 and paid in full in summer 1998. Experian had it listed as falling off in summer of 2005, and I disputed it saying that it shoud fall off 7 years from the delinquency that led to the chargeoff, which being spring 1997, would make the fall off date spring 2004. I though it was an open-and-shut dispute, since Experian's own website adheres to this 7 year definition. But Experian verified the information by keeping the fall off date the same (summer 2005) and incorrectly changing the charge-off date from summer 1997 to summer 1998! I'm angry, since it isn't accurate and I'm sure this will decrease my FICO score by making the charge-off more recent than it actually is. And to add insult to injury, when I got my Equifax report two days later, the Citibank entry says that "cunsumer disputes this information" meaning that I couldn't dispute it on Equifax if I wanted to. I never disputed this item with Equifax, and they say that Citibank updated that info. Any suggestions on where to go from here? I have documentation coming from Citibank stating the correct charge off date for my re-dispute with Experian, but I was hoping that Citibank would not verify this info - since it has been paid for 2 1/2 years. As of now, my credit report has 2 installment accounts paid in full with no lates (1 and 2 years old), 2 recently opened installment accounts with no lates, four credit cards with no lates (1 and 2 years old), one "closed by credit grantor" I'm currently paying off (rated R1 by Equifax) and this Citibank charge-off from 1997. How badly will the Citibank item hurt me if it stays on? Thanks!
