Can a Credit Dispute Erase Bad Credit?
June 6th, 2009, Written By: Kerri Randall
Oh no! You found an error (or two or three…) on your credit report and now you need to file a credit dispute. Take a deep breath-you’re not alone. The majority of credit reports contain errors, and if the information is truly inaccurate, the credit bureau that reported it should have it resolved or removed completely in 30 days. But what about that purely negative history? Is there anything you can do to erase bad credit?
Only Time Erases Bad Credit
Unfortunately, the only thing that can erase bad credit is time. Even if an error adversely affected your credit score, removing it will not erase any history attached to it. For example, it’s considered a hard inquiry when a lender checks your credit during a loan process, and a denial after it will decrease your score even more. (A soft inquiry is when you check your own credit. It will show up on your report but won’t affect your score.)
Removing the error may raise your score, but the hard inquiry and denial will remain on your report until they age off (usually no more than seven years).
Perhaps you missed some payments or had been sent to collections, and you have since resolved the debt, but you find that account listed on your report, indicating it is still open and delinquent. You definitely want this removed immediately, but even so, the negative payment history will remain on your report since it is accurate information relating to your account.
You Can’t Dispute Negative Info
You cannot dispute accurate negative information at all, so there’s no process to have that erased. If you try, it will not produce the results you want. All you can really do is make a conscious change in your habits: pay your bills on time and keep your balances low. The more time that passes since your negative information was reported, the less it affects your score.
A small side note here-if you found it necessary to close an account with a balance still on it, make sure you start making on-time payments right away. It’s only once you’ve paid it off that the “time since delinquency” begins, and you want that clock running as soon as possible.
Time is your only friend regarding a bad credit history. A credit dispute will only help remove the errors, not related history. Establish good credit habits now so that your new positive history will outweigh the negative as soon as possible.
Categories: Credit Report Dispute
