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I recently checked my credit scores and was extremely surprised to learn that I still have scores that are considered weak (below 700) especially considering I havent had a late payment in years, have paid almost all of my credit card debt off and I have been given great rates on car loans and recently got a new card with a high credit limit with a great rate. I am signed up through bank of america to receive quarterly credit updates and it explains why what is negatively effecting my credit score and noticed that in the past two months 3 places reported I had late payments in the past but that was over 5 years ago!!!
why would they all of the sudden report late payments and how can I get them to stop? These are all credit cards that I got some bad advice on a while ago about stoping paying them and they would setlle (which of course is bs but it was over 5 years ago!) Why would they report these late payments so long after the fact and how can I get them to stop??? I would like to buy a house soon but this is going to put a kink in those plans, please help
Are they reporting RECENT late payments? Or are those late payments with a 5 year old date?
And did you settle the debt eventually, or do you still owe them? In the latter case what you actually have is likely a charge-off, which will significantly hurt yours score.
The good news is that they should all drop off your report after 7 years, so you have worst case 2 more years to go before things are looking crisp and clean.
BTW, great job on turning things around! Your score was likely in the trash 5 years ago and it sounds like you've done a great job rebuilding it, even if you weren't looking at the number. It'll keep climbing as you keep paying your bills and it will only be another 2 years before that stuff is gone.
One word of warning--if you get back in touch with those creditors BE CAREFUL about doing anything that would be considered acknowledging the debt. You could call and ask them questions, etc., but don't explicitly acknowledge you owe the money and definitely don't do anything in writing that would acknowledge it, unless you have carefully read the rebuilding forum here and seen how to handle that properly. You could then look at something like a pay for deletion deal if you still owe them -- but just be careful there and educate yourself. Otherwise they could report that debt as fresh again, and while it would still drop off after 7 years, my understanding is it could seriously damage your score in the meantime!
Can't speak to why but you can't expect 5 years to mean that the data is no longer valid. All you can do at this point is hit the Rebuilding subforum and carefully (for reasons stated above) research to see what you can do to address these. If they are invalid that's an entirely separate matter but that doesn't seem to be the case from what you said in your OP.
@Anonymous wrote:I recently checked my credit scores and was extremely surprised to learn that I still have scores that are considered weak (below 700) especially considering I havent had a late payment in years
While that's a plus you have to aim for 100% Payment History. Anything less will hold you down. Consider the general relative weight of that factor.