Please Help, Forgot to pay a credit card?

[Anonymous]

Keep trying.  Eventually they'll give in and remove it.

[CreditAble]

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@eddymvp wrote:

I used my home depot card sometime in September and I forgot I had use it and I remembered when I got my statement this weekend that I was 60 days past due. I went online and immediately paid the card.

I contacted them yesterday and they said they can't do anything and they have to report the history to the bureau. I have not been late in any other payment for 4 years and now this is going to hurt my credit by this little mistake I made for not remembering that I owe money to the home depot card.

What should I do?

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If you didn't recieve, or you overlooked a statement, you are still responsible to pay the bill on time. Having said that. I recall a long time ago a person who worked for MBNA now FIA (Bank of America) said that the only excuse that the bank would accept for late payment (credit report wise) was "I didn't receive the bill". Of course your forgetting that you used a seldom used card could account for why you didn't keep track of the due date on your own. Still if you actually received a bill, that would be a reason in the creditors eyes that "I forgot" is not a reasonable enough excuse to delete lates from credit reports.

"I never received a bill until I was 60 days late." coupled with "I forgot that I had used the card" would probably be the only reason a creditor might consider removing the  lates for now. One might add "I am afraid to use the card at all since I might not receive a bill and my credit score will suffer again".

In any event lates have a better chance of forgiveness after a year of ontime payments has passed.

Did you in fact not receive a statement until you were 60 days late?

[eddymvp]

We received your recent inquiry regarding your The Home Depot Credit Card account. Unfortunately, we are
unable to change the information reported to the credit reporting agencies listed below, as it accurately reflects
your account history with us.

[pritchardhallhokie]

TRY TRY TRY AGAIN!

[eddymvp]

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@CreditAble wrote:

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Did you in fact not receive a statement until you were 60 days late?

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That is correct I did not receive  a statement until I was 60 days late. 

I just contacted them and they said its going to my email. I don't recall receiving any  statement on my email from home depot. I just did  a search on my email and didn't find anything. The only thing they did was to credited the 35 late fee. 

They also gave me the address to write to executive response unit.

[steve23111]

While it's a bit too late to help the OP, this is why I have all of my cards set up to automatically pay the minimum balance due. I like to think that I'm always on top of things and can always pay the balance in full before the bill even cuts, but I know that inevitably there will be a time when I forget one, and I'd rather auto-pay the minimum and maybe get hit with a small amount of finance charges for the remainder instead of taking the hit on the credit record. Of course, there's just too much room for things to go horribly wrong in auto-paying the full balance, so I do admit I stay away from that!

[eddymvp]

steve23111, Thanks for the idea, I will try that.  I also mailed the goodwill letter today to the credit services and to the Executive Respond Unit.

[p-]

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@eddymvp wrote:

steve23111, Thanks for the idea, I will try that.  I also mailed the goodwill letter today to the credit services and to the Executive Respond Unit.

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Exec response is a great path to try - keep it friendly, and make sure they know you want to continue being a customer...  Good luck!