fantastic fico - should i bother disputing errors?

[music12]

hey everyone,

i just checked my fico score - surprisingly enough i got it free from score watch even though i had already done a free trial a few years ago. it was 690! it's only been 6 months since filing, and i expected something in the 500's...

so my question is: there are two accounts that are wrong, one showing a late payment even though it was current when i filed, the other showing IIB when the balance was always zero (a line of credit i never used once). should i bother to dispute them?

i would just dispute without thinking twice, but i am worried that somehow in the process, an account that's on my bk matrix but not on any credit report would end up there. does anybody have experience with an account from the matrix showing up on a cr when it was never, ever there before?

[SweetGeorgia]

No, but anecdotal evidence (my own, when I could check my credit without fainting) seems to show that messing with it AT ALL makes it go down. Don't waste the time!

[justbroke]

Yes, be careful with accounts on your report. Even an "old" account that had issues 4+ years ago, can make your score go down if you have it deleted. Longevity (average length of accounts) have a big impact.

I remember when I had a wrongfully placed collection account on my history. I disputed it and asked to have it deleted. They did, and my score went down 20 points!

Note: your score will vary. No one can tell you what impact changing a specific thing on your FICO score will have. It's statistical modeling that is patented and Fair Isaac won't tell anyone how it "really" works.

[music12]

thanx sweetgeorgia, and hey justbroke! good to "see" you again.

interesting! one of the accounts i was going to dispute is actually my oldest... i wasn't going to ask to have it deleted, just corrected, but i guess there is a risk that they'd just delete and be done with it instead of fixing it.

but i was more worried about a dispute causing someone to look at my creditor matrix and copying creditors from there onto the credit report. i am worried about that because my main creditor never, ever reported me to any credit bureau and i obviously prefer it not to be on my report. if my fear justified? that is, might someone look up my creditor matrix if i do file a dispute, for example to verify that the account indeed was not IIB?

[justbroke]

I don't know music. I don't see how the two are linked.

[music12]

ah. then i am probably just paranoid.

i think i won't dispute, at least for now. i don't have time to deal with it and it really isn't such a big deal. it just annoys me that there are "late payments" reported when there should be none. yet they are already 6 months old and probably do not affect my score that much. i probably just should let it go - choose my battles wisely this time around...

as always, thanx for your inpute