Rebuilding Your Credit

[fuschiab]

Hi everyone!  I've seen that lots of you have had success with goodwill letters. Have any of you had luck with one to Bank of America?

My husband and I are applying for a mortgage now - my scores range from 635-680; his is solidly 780.  The real blow to my credit score is a very recent 30-day late payment from Bank of America (which has a zero balance now).  Below is my attempt at goodwill letter to BoA - it may be overly honest.  I'd value your critiques / helpful hints / advice, etc… before I send it over to them.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing today regarding my credit card acount #1234 1234 1234 1234.  The purpose of writing is to see if you would be willing to make a goodwill adjustment on the reporting of this account to the three credit agencies.

I was away from home for nearly all of October and November - traveling for my husbands grandmothers funeral, helping to organize her affairs after she passed, and working around the clock on a website launch.  I had attempted to set up an autopay system through my bank for credit card bills, but it did not go through.  When I returned home in mid-December, I found a Bank of America missed statement letter, and promptly paid my bill
Just to be clear, I am not looking to dispute this late payment - it was absolutely my error.  However, I am asking (begging?) for a courtesy gesture of goodwill in having the credit bureaus remove this account from my report.   My husband and I are about to purchase our first home together.  They say opposites attract; and in this case it's true. He has an A+ score on his credit report, while mine has been damaged by this recent late payment. I'm horrified that my husband's years of financial sacrifice are about to be undone by my stupid oversight this fall.  This single 30 day late payment is not a good indicator of my credit worthiness, and certainly no reflection of his.

I do recognize that the Fair Credit Reporting Act does not demand that all accounts be reported, only that any account that is reported be reported accurately.  Therefore, it's my understanding that Bank of America has the legal discretion and permission to remove any account if chooses from the credit report.  I'm humbly hoping that you will do that in my case for this account.

Best regards,

fuschiab

[laz98]

---

fuschiab wrote:

Hi everyone!  I've seen that lots of you have had success with goodwill letters. Have any of you had luck with one to Bank of America?

My husband and I are applying for a mortgage now - my scores range from 635-680; his is solidly 780.  The real blow to my credit score is a very recent 30-day late payment from Bank of America (which has a zero balance now).  Below is my attempt at goodwill letter to BoA - it may be overly honest.  I'd value your critiques / helpful hints / advice, etc… before I send it over to them.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing today regarding my credit card acount #1234 1234 1234 1234.  The purpose of writing is to see if you would be willing to make a goodwill adjustment on the reporting of this account to the three credit agencies.

I was away from home for nearly all of October and November - traveling for my husbands grandmothers funeral, helping to organize her affairs after she passed, and working around the clock on a website launch.  I had attempted to set up an autopay system through my bank for credit card bills, but it did not go through.  When I returned home in mid-December, I found a Bank of America missed statement letter, and promptly paid my bill
Just to be clear, I am not looking to dispute this late payment - it was absolutely my error.  However, I am asking (begging?) for a courtesy gesture of goodwill in having the credit bureaus remove this account from my report.   My husband and I are about to purchase our first home together.  They say opposites attract; and in this case it's true. He has an A+ score on his credit report, while mine has been damaged by this recent late payment. I'm horrified that my husband's years of financial sacrifice are about to be undone by my stupid oversight this fall.  This single 30 day late payment is not a good indicator of my credit worthiness, and certainly no reflection of his.

I do recognize that the Fair Credit Reporting Act does not demand that all accounts be reported, only that any account that is reported be reported accurately.  Therefore, it's my understanding that Bank of America has the legal discretion and permission to remove any account if chooses from the credit report.  I'm humbly hoping that you will do that in my case for this account.

Best regards,

fuschiab

---

you don't want them to remove the entire account, you want them to remove the late payment.  i would definitely change this!  you may want to change the wording of your last paragraph as well, to reflect this.

[gymbo731]

Sounds good to me!!! Send it and hope for the best! Check out jigsaw.com too and send to some high level exec's.

I agree with laz. Change that one part to only remove the late payment. you don't want the whole account removed.

Message Edited by gymbo731 on 02-26-2010 10:07 PM

[fuschiab]

And …off it goes!

Thank you Iaz and Gymbo for your advice. You're right - I don't want them to remove the account from my credit report - just the late payment! 

My revised letter is below:

Dear Sir or Madam,


I am writing today regarding my credit card acount #1234 1234 1234 1234.  The purpose of writing is to see if you would be willing to make a goodwill adjustment on the reporting of this account to the three credit agencies.


I was away from home for nearly all of October and November - traveling for my husbands grandmothers funeral, helping to organize her affairs after she passed, and working around the clock on a website launch.  I had attempted to set up an autopay system through my bank for credit card bills, but it did not go through.  When I returned home in mid-December, I found a Bank of America missed statement letter, and promptly paid my bill
.

Just to be clear, I am not looking to dispute this late payment - it was absolutely my error.  However, I am asking (begging?) for a courtesy gesture of goodwill in having the credit bureaus remove the late payment on this account from my report.   My husband and I are about to purchase our first home together.  They say opposites attract; and in this case it's true. He has an A+ score on his credit report, while mine has been damaged by this recent late payment. I'm horrified that my husband's years of financial sacrifice are about to be undone by my stupid oversight this fall.  This single 30 day late payment is not a good indicator of my credit worthiness, and certainly no reflection of his.


I recognize that the Fair Credit Reporting Act does not demand that all accounts be reported, only that any account information that is reported be reported accurately.  Therefore, it's my understanding that Bank of America has the legal discretion and permission to remove the 30 day late payment on my account if chooses from the credit report.  I'm humbly hoping that you will do that in my case.

Best regards,
 
fuschiab
 

[msdraglox]

Good luck with BofA, they would not do anything for me, but I am still sending and getting calls from the CEO's office....lol, I think I will just bother them until the fall off date....lol

[RobertEG]

I think your letter is one of the best GWs I have ever read.

I wish you luck!

[ficonovice]

If your 30 day late was recent, I'd recommend calling them as well. Recently (very) BoA dinged me with a 30 day

late (my fault, changed banks, etc..) and it was my first 30 day in years and I had a perfect history with BoA.

I called them to make a payment (via a CSR) and after making the payment, asked him if he could do one

other thing for me. I explained what happened and told him how upset I was when I saw this 30 day late appear

on my reports. Further, I told him how diligent I always was and that I was refinancing my home and this recent

derog was really hurting my chances.

Immediately he said I understand and will take care of this for you! I said thank you about a million times and

ended the call. I ran my reports about a week later (I called on my statement date and knew they'd be reporting

that day) and presto, all gone...

Good luck! 

[gymbo731]

---

fuschiab wrote:

And …off it goes!

Thank you Iaz and Gymbo for your advice. You're right - I don't want them to remove the account from my credit report - just the late payment! 

My revised letter is below:

Dear Sir or Madam,


I am writing today regarding my credit card acount #1234 1234 1234 1234.  The purpose of this letter is to see if you would be willing to make a goodwill adjustment on the reporting of this account to the three credit agencies.


I was away from home for nearly all of October and November - traveling for my husbands grandmothers funeral, helping to organize her affairs after she passed, and working around the clock on a website launch.  I had attempted to set up an autopay system through my bank for credit card bills, but it did not go through.  When I returned home in mid-December, I found a Bank of America missed statement letter, and promptly paid my bill
.

Just to be clear, I am not looking to dispute this late payment - it was absolutely my error.  However, I am asking (begging?) for a courtesy gesture of goodwill in having the credit bureaus remove the late payment on this account from my report.   My husband and I are about to purchase our first home together.  They say opposites attract; and in this case it's true. He has an A+ score on his credit report, while mine has been damaged by this recent late payment. I'm horrified that my husband's years of financial sacrifice are about to be undone by my stupid oversight this fall.  This single 30 day late payment is not a good indicator of my credit worthiness, and certainly no reflection of his.


I recognize that the Fair Credit Reporting Act does not demand that all accounts be reported, only that any account information that is reported be reported accurately.  Therefore, it's my understanding that Bank of America has the legal discretion and permission to remove the 30 day late payment on my account if chooses from the credit report.  I'm humbly hoping that you will do that in my case.

Best regards,
 
fuschiab
 

---

Hey -

I was re-reading your letter, and found some things you should change. "The purpose of this writing" just doesn't sound right. Change it to letter, or coorespondance. Also, don't say begging, at least not yet... lol. So remove that. Also, you might want to remove that last paragraph or re-word it someone. You state the the FCRA demands that all accounts report accurately, and yet you are asking them to change something that is accurate! If you were looking for a deletion, then that paragraph would work. But when you want them to change something that is accurate, you don't want to say that the FCRA requires them to report accurate. You are just simply looking for some goodwill in the removal, and it may be against there policy's, but you want them to make an excemption.

Hope that helps. I am sure you will need to send more than one GW letter anyhow. From what I read, BoA is hard to deal with. Another thing you might want to try is to send them a secure message through your account online. I don't have a BoA account, so idk if you can or not, but if you can, it would be a good idea.

Good luck!!

[fuschiab]

Hi Gymbo,

Thanks again for your feedback and suggestions.  I'm going to work on a rewrite of the letter - and I'll keep everyone posted if I have any results with it!

[emailme2]

hi,

I was wondering if someone could please share the address where I can mail my goodwill letter to?

This is for Bank Of America credit card that I have and I live in Sunnyvale CA

Thanks.