Dear Experian,
Can I dispute the score? I have a creditor that hasn't reported me current on several opened accounts. I show current with Experian and one of the other credit agencies but there is no account data with the third. I show the lowest score from them.
- NTA
Dear NTA,
You cannot dispute a credit score. Credit scores simply represent the information in your credit report, so you must change the information in the report in order to change your credit scores.
Disputing information you believe to be inaccurate in your credit report can result in changes to the report. Those changes would subsequently be reflected in credit scores. However, submitting a dispute probably would not help in your situation.
Lenders Are Not Required to Report Credit Information
Lenders are not required to report to all three of the national credit reporting agencies. For business reasons they may choose to report your accounts to just one or, as in your case, two of them.
Your lender would have to have a reporting contract with the third credit reporting company in order for the information to appear in the report. There may be significant costs and other factors affecting that decision. If the lender does not have that contractual relationship, they would not be able to honor your request to do so.
There Are Many Different Credit Scoring Models Available
If you obtained the scores independently from each credit reporting company, the scores could be different simply because the scoring models themselves were different.
Although one score is lower than the others, it's also possible that the difference is negligible or insignificant in terms of creditworthiness. While the score is somewhat lower, it might still indicate you are an excellent credit risk and would not affect the lending decision or terms of the loan. Be sure that you are not just comparing your numbers, but more importantly where that specific score fell in the range of risk for that model.
Thanks for asking.
- The "Ask Experian" team