Filing a credit dispute does not directly impact your credit rating, but the results of the dispute could increase or decrease your score. Requesting a correction to your credit report has no effect on credit scores in and of itself. However, if the dispute alters certain types of data in your credit report, that outcome could influence your credit scores. For instance, since late payments can have a strong negative effect on credit scores, removing an incorrectly stated late payment from your credit report could raise your credit rating. I want to share my experience so that if you suddenly see your credit rating drop drastically after questioning your credit history, don't panic.
You can challenge errors in the credit report by gathering documentation about the error and sending a letter to the credit agency that created the report. Credit scores are based on the content of your credit reports, so changes to those reports may alter your ratings. Filing a dispute has no impact on your score; however, if the information in your credit report changes after processing the dispute, your credit rating may change. If you weren't able to delete or change the offending credit annotation, you can make it appear as “disputed” as long as it remains on your credit reports. It's a good idea to review the credit reports of the three national credit bureaus at least once a year and act quickly to correct any inaccuracies you discover.
The last section on the reasons for the decline in my credit rating contains 15 comments on my credit report as of March 12, in the updated account information. When filing a dispute with credit reporting agencies, the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires them to prove that the item is “in dispute.”In addition, the third activity that increased my use of revolving credit should have reduced my credit rating by 5 to 20 points. Experian and other national credit bureaus send the dispute to the source of the information to verify it before changing a credit report. Some of the information in your credit report has no impact on credit scores, such as identification and address information.
