Can You Dispute Your Credit Score? What to Dispute Instead

By The Kim Law Firm, LLC

You cannot dispute a credit score itself. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) gives you the right to dispute the completeness or accuracy of the information in your credit file (15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(1)(A)), and every score is calculated from that file. A credit score dispute is therefore a dispute of the entries underneath the score: a late payment you never made, a balance that is wrong, an account that is not yours. When the credit reporting agency corrects or deletes those entries, the next score calculated from the file reflects the change.

What is a credit score?

In a nutshell, a credit score is a three-digit number that is supposed to reflect your likelihood of repaying a debt. It is based on a consumer’s credit history, such as the number of accounts you have open, your payment history, unpaid debt, foreclosures, bankruptcies, and new applications for credit, i.e., credit inquiries. 

Potential lenders use credit scores to determine one’s creditworthiness, or how worthy an individual is of receiving new credit and trusting them to pay their debts back accordingly. It also impacts your buying power on major financial decisions, such as renting or purchasing a home, buying insurance, and increases your chances of securing a job.

What are credit scoring models and where do they come from?

A credit scoring model is a mathematical formula used to determine one’s credit score. Many people are under the impression that there is a single credit score when several different scoring models exist. You may be familiar with FICO® and VantageScore®. These two are the leading consumer credit scoring models that analyze an individual’s credit report and use that information to determine their credit score.

The scores for both FICO® and VantageScore® range from as low as 300 to as high as 850, with the latter considered perfect. Although they both try to determine the same outcome, the models’ methods are not identical.

FICO® utilizes a bureau-specific scoring model, which means that models for TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian will all differ from each other. They group their data into the following five categories:

• Payment history (35%)
• Amount owed (30%)
• Length of credit history (15%)
• New credit (10%)
• Credit mix (10%)

VantageScore® operates on a single tri-bureau model meaning the same model is used on a credit report, whether from TransUnion, Equifax, or Experian. They group their data into the following five categories:

• Total credit usage, balance, and available credit (extremely influential)
• Credit mix and experience (highly influential)
• Payment history (moderately influential)
• New accounts opened (less influential)
• Age of credit history (less influential)

How to dispute the information behind your credit score

1. Find out which report the score came from. If a lender turned you down because of your credit report, it must give you the numerical credit score it used, the key factors that hurt that score, and the name and contact details of the agency that supplied the report. You are also entitled to a free copy of that report if you ask within 60 days of the notice (15 U.S.C. § 1681m(a)).
2. Read the report line by line. Compare it with your own records and with the other two nationwide reports. An entry that appears on one report and not the others deserves a closer look.
3. Dispute each wrong entry with the agency. Explain what is wrong, include copies of your proof, and keep the originals. The agency must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation and generally has 30 days to finish it (15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(1)(A)).
4. Check the result against the next report. A deleted or corrected entry should be gone or fixed on the updated file, and any new score pulled from that file is calculated without it.

When the dispute does not fix the report

If the agency verifies an entry you can show is wrong, or the company that furnished it keeps reporting it after your dispute, the FCRA lets you sue. A consumer can recover actual damages for a negligent violation and statutory or punitive damages for a willful one, and in either case the court can order the defendant to pay your attorney’s fees (15 U.S.C. §§ 1681n and 1681o). You pay nothing unless we win. Talk to a credit report lawyer about the entries that are still wrong, or call (855) 996-6342.

A score is only as good as the file underneath it

Scores are calculated from data, and the data comes from a specific consumer reporting agency’s file on you. That is why the same person can have three meaningfully different scores on the same day: each bureau holds a slightly different set of accounts, and a furnisher that reports to two of them but not the third produces a gap no scoring model can correct for. Beyond the three nationwide bureaus sit specialty agencies that build their own files and their own scores from data the main bureaus never see.

• Equifax — one of the three files most scores are calculated from.
• TransUnion — maintains a separate file that can differ materially.
• Experian — the third nationwide file behind most lending decisions.
• Innovis — a fourth agency whose file is rarely checked by consumers.
• SageStream — builds alternative scores from data outside the main files.
• DataX — a specialty agency serving lenders in the short-term market.

If a score is lower than your history suggests it should be, look at the file rather than the number, because the number cannot be disputed and the underlying entries can. Compare the three reports against each other and note anything appearing on one but not the others, since that asymmetry usually points either to a furnisher reporting selectively or to an entry that does not belong to you. Correcting the file is the only route to correcting the score, and a deleted inaccurate entry updates automatically the next time a score is pulled.

Common questions

Can I dispute my credit score?

No. You dispute the information in your credit report, and the score changes when that information is corrected or deleted. The FCRA dispute right covers the completeness or accuracy of the items in your file.

How long does a credit report dispute take?

The credit reporting agency generally has 30 days from receiving your dispute to finish its reinvestigation.

Does a lender have to tell me the credit score it used to deny me?

Yes. If a lender takes adverse action based on your credit report and used a credit score, it must disclose the score and the key factors that adversely affected it, along with your right to a free copy of the report within 60 days.

Do I have to pay a lawyer to sue over a credit reporting error?

The FCRA lets a consumer who wins recover attorney’s fees from the defendant. You pay nothing unless we win.

Admitted in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; available to appear pro hac vice in other federal courts.