Some time ago, quite a few years actually, I disputed a late payment on my citibank credit card. To my recollection, it was never removed. I pulled my credit report today and noted that the tradeline is still marked as disputed as follows: TU: Account information disputed by consumer; meets FCRA requirements. EQ: Consumer disputes this account information. EX: Customer disputed account - reported by subscriber. This is my oldest trade line (and most positive) and I'm wondering if, since this tradeline is marked as disputed, it's not being counted into my FICO score. Under the section titled Late Payments (last 7 years), there are no late payments, since I never made any. Should I contact the CRAs and have them remove the dispute since there's nothing derogatory? I'm going to be looking for a mortgage within the next year or so and want to have the highest score possible with no errors. If I need to remove a dispute, what's the process? I don't think I would dispute the TL as I ordinarily would. Thanks!!
If it's old, I'd leave it alone. They are supposed to mark it in dispute and then remove the trade line if it's not verified. If it's your oldest, you don't want it removed. If nothing is showing in the negatives it shouldn't really be hurting you. And if it's old, it probably has minimal impact anyway.
I don't want the tradeline removed. It's still an active account. I'm just concerned that my best positive tradeline is not being counted toward my FICO score since it's marked as disputed. It's my understanding that disputed accounts are not supposed to count towards your FICO score until after the verification process, or up to 30 days. This has been many years now that it is marked as disputed.
I was wondering if it's been entered as a consumer comment, which doesn't affect the scoring but would show on manual underwriting.
I've never made a consumer comment on this report. The only thing I did was dispute it through the CRAs to try and get rid of the late payment that was showing.
You could try writing and saying "I haven't disputed this account, please remove comment." See what happens. If it's an active account, even if they removed the entire account, it would probably report again next month.
This is a case where the process was done correctly; a tradeline should be notated "disputed" if you disputed it. The remark will not affect your FICO score, though the remark should be updated to include a comment "dispute resolved", verified, etc.". You may wish to request removal of this remark by writing to the CRAs and requesting removal. Cite dispute settled or corrected as reason for removal.
