Hello all (this is my delurkance): First I would like to agree with those who have commented on the addictive nature of this board, it really makes having lousy credit fun! Now my question. I recently ordered my credit report and FICO score online from Equifax. During the online dispute process, each account is listed with a series of check boxes underneath it that correspond to reasons that you are disputing that account. However, the reasons that you can select are NOT the same for each account; rather, they seem to be tailor made for each account based on any negative information that it contains. Therefore, I found it very curious that some of my "positive" accounts offered me the choice of disputing based on reasons that seemed irrelevant. For instance, my student loan account listed no negative information, yet I was offered the choice of disputing it based on the reason "I have never paid that account late". Some of my other accounts did not offer that option at all, and now I'm wondering if Equifax somehow flagged my student loan as delinquent even though one would not realize it from the written language (and, in actuality, it NEVER was late). Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I went ahead and checked that box for good measure. My score for equifax (681) was much lower than my score for transunion (741), even though the equifax report ostensibly contains less negative information, and this makes me wonder all the more whether there is negative information hidden in there.
I've had the same experience. I had an account that on Equifax was flagged a 0 times 30, 60, and 90 late. All the rest of my accounts just didn't say anything. Some flag was set that the account was late when it never was. So I disputed it as never late, and they fixed it. Worthknowing on the other hand tells me in the recommendations section that I have been 90 days late even though that's not true. I even contacted their customer service who said they could not see a reason for that.
I've posted this a couple a times on other threads, so I apologize for being redundant..HOWEVER... I discovered that the snail mail Equifax reports are different than the ones offered online. They include at least one additional field called something like "STATUS". If your account has never been late, the STATUS field shows something like R0. If its ever been 30 days late it will show R1, 60 days R2, 90 days R3. I have an account that has never been late, and the online report showed no late payments being reported. The snail mail copy also showed no late payments EXCEPT that the STATUS field entry if R3. As soon as it was corrected my score jumped and my reason codes changed accordingly.
R0 REVOLVING TOO NEW TO RATE OR NOT RATED R1 REVOLVING PAID AS AGREED R2 REVOLVING 30 DAYS LATE R3 REVOLVING 60 DAYS LATE R4 REVOLVING 90 DAYS LATE R5 REVOLVING 120 DAYS LATE I=INSTALLMENT WITH SAME 0-5
