tl;dr - They haven’t reported updated information since last year. How do I get them to do so, or how can I otherwise correct the information on my credit report?
Longer version:
Got a personal loan a few years ago through Lending Point. Earlier this year, I noticed that the last time they reported any updated information to the credit bureaus was December of last year. I paid the thing off back this past May, and had hoped that would trigger them to update it within a month or two, But they didn’t, and as far as anyone(such as a new lender) is concerned, I still have an open personal loan that I owe a bunch of money on. Do I have to call these people and complain? Should I dispute the inaccurate information on my credit report? I spent quite a few years banging away at that stupid fucking thing, eliminating every negative account/collections/etc. Don’t want to dispute that information just to find out that it’s going to somehow backfire on me. As far as it stands now, I have no negative anything whatsoever on my report, and every single account on there is in good standing with a 100% perfect payment history.
Problem is, full-time job pays so little that for the last few years(basically since the pandemic started) I’ve been stuck more and more using credit cards and Affirm/After pay loans for “luxuries” such as… food, and having electricity, and clean clothes. You know, non-essentials. Using up more than half my (tiny) monthly income just to pay the minimums on the cards and the monthly Affirm payments at this point. Could use a new personal loan to consolidate all of that down to a single payment, but the fact that my cards are all maxed out is keeping my score down, making it difficult. And having it look like I already have an active personal loan when I don’t, sure as shit isn’t helping my case when trying to get a new one. Being able to consolidate would set me back into a position to where I have enough cash throughout the month to not have to rely on the cards to pay for basic shit in the first place.
I’d call them, and if they don’t respond in a reasonable amount of time, dispute it. That’s the recommendation by Experian, and I’d assume that’s how the other major bureaus would like to handle it. They should update the loan every month.
If they still don’t do that, then when you go to apply for a loan, you should provide your own documentation showing that the credit report info is incorrect. That won’t change your credit score, but it could improve your odds of getting the loan.
That said, I recommend you don’t take out another loan. You need to fix the income/spending mismatch, and a loan won’t fix that, it’ll just delay the inevitable (i.e. you getting back in this situation).
Getting a loan won’t help with income, but it could help with expenses. Changing a 20%-30% interest rate into a 7%-19% interest rate could be a useful thing to do for a 3-10 year plan, especially if it actually lowers the overall amount you need to pay each month.