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Comment by starwind | Hacker News Reader

> Everything else is based on some imagined harm that might or might not come to you or some other imaginary person at some point in the future.

They threatened to report this to a credit rating agency. At any given time it's probably not a big deal assuming 1) you don't need to replace your car or sign a lease or get a personal loan around that time and 2) you know that you can dispute negative marks on your credit report and you know how to do that.

I didn't know how to do that until I had my identity stolen and I'm definitely more credit savvy than most from my cc churning days

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Disputing a negative hit to your credit score does not mean it gets removed. You need to have excellent documentation, which the author does but not everyone is so meticulous throughout a months-long dispute.

Also, credit scores are used now for some job applications. You can’t get some jobs without a good credit score. If you refuse to sign a waiver allowing the potential employer access to your credit score, you forfeit the job. Such jobs are often in the financial sector where employers want to make sure you do not have an incentive to steal.

> Disputing a negative hit to your credit score does not mean it gets removed.

I believe it usually does get removed immediately, but temporarily, until the credit reporting agency (CRA) has come to a decision on the case.

I've heard of folks closing on mortgages soon and out of nowhere, a past dispute winds up on their credit report as a negative item, putting the mortgage closing at risk. So they immediately dispute it to resolve the issue in the short-term.

> They threatened to report this to a credit rating agency. At any given time it's probably not a big deal assuming 1) you don't need to replace your car or sign a lease or get a personal loan around that time and 2) you know that you can dispute negative marks on your credit report and you know how to do that.

or 3) it's just a bluff or 4) they do this all the time and the hit is so minimal that it won't even register, because of Affirm's disrepute.

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