Should I pay to delete?

I went in for a car loan last September and discovered some new negs on my credit profile. I disputed with the CRAs and they went away long enough for my FICO to go from 625 to 680 and I got 8% rather than 14%.

Here's what I'd suggest, if you haven't disputed the Cap 1 item in a long time.

Go to your bank or credit union and get pre-approved for the loan. Ask the loan officer about that tradeline and if removing it would make a difference. (It may, and it may not.) If so, send a dispute letter to whatever credit bureau they used (or all three). Wait a week and then go back to the bank and ask them to pull your credit again. The lady I was working with was quite surprized to see how it had changed.

You could also get one of the credit monitoring services that lets you get an update with your credit score any time you want. I use TrueCredit. Monitor it and wait until the TL drops off. Your score should jump 30-50 points.

BTW, every loan person I've talked with has told me that it takes up to a month for credit scores to respond to things like this. That has not been my experience; they seem to get updated whenever something changes.

 

First, Cap1 is very difficult to deal with (on these matters), so I doubt they would remove even for a PFD.

With less than a year to "fall off", it is probably not impacting your credit score as much as you think, in fact the "age" of the account is probably helping your score more so.

But, to the point of an auto loan, you may want to time your loan application with a dispute to the CRAs. Per guidelines, an account marked "in dispute" should not be included in your FICO score.

So, dispute, wait until it shows as "in dispute", then have your credit report pulled for your auto loan. Just be aware that the score could drop due to losing the aged account.

 

Either can happen when you enter a CRA dispute:
1. The CRA should flag a TL as "in dispute" once they receive your letter.
2. The OC or CA might choose to temporarily remove the TL during the CRA verification period.

It doesnt matter if #1 or #2 happens, you should see a change in your score.

 

I doubt this whole series of answers. Maybe you've all had different experiences with me, but I disputed a $2k+ CO that was 8-9 months old and the account went delinquent almost immediately, so the age of the account wasn't helping me.

Anyway, when I disputed the account, my scores DROPPED 3-10 points per CR.

 

I've read somewhere that the scoring system puts people into different brackets that behave differently for the same kinds of things.

Your scores are 30-60 points lower than mine were when I disputed my items. In my case, when the disputed items were temporarily removed from my profiles, my scores jumped up ~60 pts.

I have a friend who's scores were all in the mid-to-hi 500's like yours and she disputed something that was also temporarily removed from her profiles, and her scores dropped as well. And when the item reappeared, her scores didn't change.

I read something somewhere that said the scoring system is designed to keep people with relatively low scores from improving very quickly. These tend to be the people who can least afford higher interest rates, and the same ones who use pawn shops and payday loan places on a regular basis as an integral part of their financial management "strategies".

 

Exactly my point, it was helping you, 3-10 points worth of help