How to get a late payment deleted from the credit reports

Written by admin on December 31, 2009 – 7:41 am

I just got the good news that a client had a 2008 30-day late payment deleted. He had previously disputed it with Experian online, but of course they verified.

I recommended calling the creditor and explaining what happened. While the first person said it was too long ago for him to delete (request deletion PROMPTLY), the request was forwarded to management and they have now removed the late.

That late seriously lowered his FICO scores because it was such a RECENT late and since the account was OPEN and he has an otherwise FLAWLESS payment record, they should have deleted it. The reason for the late was that he didn’t receive the bill and the NEXT bill he received late because he was traveling.

Normally, you’d notice that you missed a bill when you get the NEXT statement with the PAST DUE notice. You should then still have a couple weeks to make a payment and never become 30 days past due. Late payments are NOT reported to the bureaus unless they are 30 days or more delinquent.

If you haven’t been billed properly, you can dispute charges as per the FCBA and they can’t report negative data related to the dispute, but I think the statute of limitations is only one year.

Mail is so often misdelivered.

Often I get OTHER peoples’ mail and since I only get my mail every few weeks, the mail is SERIOUSLY delayed when redelivered to the right person. I’ve had LEGAL papers addressed to me misdelivered to a company that fortunately realized that it was important and they actually mailed it to me with a letter stating that it was delivered to them in error.

My roommate’s parents mailed him CASH for Christmas and while we’re still hoping that there’s just some delay, it’s more likely that someone else got his cash. The postal service is extremely unreliable.

Also, if you have an ISOLATED late payment, request a credit for the late fee.

And don’t ever STOP paying a loan because you have questions about your bill. I just got a reader mail that I’ll try to answer here later.

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