They gave me a "Lazarus" late!!

I've learned a lot here over the past year, and I haven't asked for much help because I read as much as I could and thought I knew most of the "rules"... but now I just took a double-damage hit from the FICO orc, and thought I'd check here to see if anyone else has been there or has any suggestions...

Here's the story... I'd cleaned up all my negs on two reports over the past year (had all my reports in the 700s), but I had just one left to get totally clean (Exp) - it had 2 accounts with lates from 4 yrs ago (incorrectly reporting) and a pd collection...

So, I dispute them with Exp... one goes away, another changes -
from "Paid - was past due 30 days"
to "Credit line closed / not paying as agreed"

OK.... well it didn't do too much to my FAKO so whatever... but *now* it shows up on Equifax, back from the dead, when it had been clean before!

Now I've got "top negatives" on Equifax (where there were no negatives and no disputes!):
"The time since most recent past due is too recent or unknown"
and "You have missed payments reported"

I pull a FICO report, and MY FICO HAD TANKED BY MORE THAN 100 POINTS!! (OK, so part of it was poor timing on a BT that was showing up twice, that took my util% from 25% to 43%)
What?!?

This old HELOC account which was opened in 1995 and closed in 2001, now shows "Current status - 30 days past due"! - yet, at the same time in the "seven year payment history" has NO late payments at all!

Man, I thought I knew how to play the game, but this is screwy... I was getting all set to see 750+ on all my reports as soon as I pay off a 0% BT, and now my Equifax FICO is below 600! Yikes! If this doesn't get corrected quickly, I'm afraid I might get rate-jacked (of course almost all my bals are 0% - can they rate-jack those??)

OK, so I called EQ and they told me to call the dispute dept in the a.m. when they open,.... any suggestions??

Or should I call the reporting dept of my local bank and tell them what their screw-up is doing to my report (but I don't know if they or the CRA screwed up)?

(If nothing else, this could be a lesson to not mess with 4-yr-old lates..)

 

Yes, I was thinking about that... the tradeline itself was not deleted and reinserted; it's just the notation of "current status - 30 days late" that was added (on an account that was paid in full, on-time, and closed over two years ago!)

I guess that should show it to be an obvious mistake right there; perhaps someone intelligent there can see that and get rid of it (I'd much rather it be corrected, now, rather than catch them in a violation - unless it goes on very long)

Thanks-

 

I meant, I have a balance, but it's at 0% on a BT deal - Iit does have the "your rate will be 0% as long as you maintain do not default on any card agreements" etc etc.

So, I suppose they could if they happen to see the "current late" before it's corrected.

On a sorta good note, the dispute person at EQ said she could not see it on my report directly, but only on a "FICO ScorePower" report does it show up, and she agreed it is weird - so she's going to call someone at FICO and try to figure it out and call me back. (I'm not holding my breath).

Also, she said that Equifax only has "read-only" access to my report; that CSC (Equifax affiliate) is the only one who can correct it for some locations (mine). That sounds weird too.

So then I called CSC also, she also thought it was strange and said that she could start a dispute - I said no, not right now, that's how it got messed up... but she did give me the number of the dept. at WellsFargo that does the actual reporting.

When I called there, she couldn't even find my account (too old), but she talked to the person that actually processes the CRA verification requests... after a bit of relaying back and forth, she just switched me to her directly (I'm thinking because I was not being nasty - yet)... and that person said she didn't have *anything* either to or from Equifax, so now I'm thinking FICO crossed Experian info into my Equifax report???

I don't know - I almost wanted to not have her contact Equifax since that doesn't appear to be where the problem started, but she repeated that since it wasn't my fault (and that it was impossible to show current 30-day late on a 2-year closed account!) that she would contact someone she knew at CSC directly to straighten it out - she also acknowledged that a 100-pt drop is certainly possible on a "current late", and that it was absolutely something that needed to be corrected ASAP, and even that a lot of the FICO stuff is bogus, and that CRAs are notorious for making lots of mistakes... (and also that her job can be very frustrating as well!)

So, I'm not sure what I will learn out of this, but it is interesting to see some of the behind-the-scenes actions - it appears that, *if they want to*, there are indeed direct ways of correcting mistakes directly. How quickly, I am about to find out.