Interesting Equifax Information

Most of you may know this already, but I'll post it anyway, because it's interesting and potentially useful.

I have been trying since July to get a description of reinvestigation procedures from CSC (Equifax affiliate). They have outright refused to reply to any mail I send them, and the reply from the only email they answered was not acceptable.

I found out recently that they added a "CUSTOMER DISPUTES THIS ACCOUNT" notation to the two items. When I called the CRA told me it was because of having been disputed so many times. Well, it was only disputed twice, but they counted the two requests for procedures as disputes!

I told her that I had not requested the notation, and that unless the creditor had made it, it should be removed. She agreed to do so.

So I am checking Credit Watch today, and my score jumped from 645 to 660! (I should note that recently recently the creditor for one of these items updated from I9 to I1, and removed all lates. This happened *before* I had the notation removed though.)

That must mean that no matter how the dispute was noted, once it is there that item no longer counts towards FICO. Had I know this I would have only had her remove the notation from that positive account!

Anyway, I thought this might be useful info...hmmm, permanent dispute notation )

 

Yes, it was, but no more.

The item WAS originally listed as I9 with differing lates, depending on the report really. When the OC 'corrected' their reporting in March they 'fixed' this item from I1 to I9.

Then, sometime in late August, the OC 'corrected' this item by changing back to I1 and removing all lates. They never did correct the original loan amount, but that's ok at this point.

So yes, when I called to get the dispute notation removed, it was a positive tradeline.

 

As I understand it, only Equifax scores ignore items in dispute.