I negotiated a car purchase on Saturday and completed all paperwork and loan app, but the finance manager was not available to run everything. Tonight (Sunday), I get a credit alert that a negative item has been added to my report. I check, and it turns out that an account I don't use much and typically pay in full when I do generated a very small (in the single dollar range) interest charge from a balance carried over from a previous month while I was traveling. So, I had paid the entire statement balance in August and didn't realize that this small interest charge existed on the next statement, so I missed making that small payment and the creditor submitted it as 30 days late (it's currently 42 days late). From a Google search of this creditor, it seems likely they will remove this if I call and ask as I've never had any late payments with them and a small balance.
Otherwise, I have 0 late pays on my record and good credit, and this dropped my score 33 points, which I worry wil not qualify me for the best rate.
What should I do? If I call the creditor first thing in the morning and they do agree to remove the item, how long should I expect that to take? Should I call the dealership and ask them to wait to run my credit? If so, how long? Should I dispute the item in the meantime to speed up the process (assuming the creditor agrees to remove it), or will this hurt my application worse?
