The real cost of disputing Over the years, credit reporting has become a permanent part of our financial well being. It is used to determine if we can qualify for loans, determine the cost of insurances such as health and automobile, and is scrutinized regarding employment. It is a well known fact that with so much data to manage, mistakes can be made, and indeed a high percentage of credit reports contain errors. The way to combat erroneous information is to dispute any incorrect information, which cleans up the report and reflects ones true credit history. But, over the past few years, an industry has developed where ANY negative information (even if it’s correct) is being disputed in hopes of just getting it off the report. The rationale is if the credit bureaus can’t verify the information in a timely manner, by law they are required to remove the information which in turn, raises the scores. The problem with doing this is that mortgage companies have become wary of people following this practice. Credit bureaus have also wised up to what’s happening and have found a way to make money from this. When a person disputes an item, the credit bureaus now note any items being disputed by putting the words “CONSUMER DISPUTES”by that item on the report. When mortgage companies see this, they are more wary of granting a loan and can deny qualification because of this. What’s unfair about this (and the bureaus are good at being unfair) is that it doesn’tmatter if the item was bad information or not. They are simply just stamping anything that has been disputed with this tag. So how do you combat this? With money of course!! Recently,we had a client who had to pay $180 ($60 per bureau) to have the words “ConsumerDisputes” removed from one item that appeared on all three reports. Having this tag on just one item was preventing her from obtaining a loan. So what can we learn from this? The big lesson is that simply disputing negatives is NOT the same as fixing bad or mediocre credit. It can incur significant costs and if nothing has been learned, the problem will crop up again. Add the cost of removing the “Consumer Disputes”tag on reports, the costs continue to build. At “I CLEAN UGLY CREDIT”, we have been promoting education which teaches people how to permanently repair their credit, and at a much lower cost! We have helped people obtain homes, cars, and simply improve their credit even if they don’t have an immediate purchase pending. Just a simple consultation can pay for itself over and over again, making life so much easier to finance. |
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CategoriesBasic InformaitonEntertaining Inspirational Nancy's posts Short Sale Success Stories |
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