Over the past couple of years I've made great strides in repairing my credit and am thrilled with where I am today. However, my goal is to get to 800+ by June of next year and I am not sure if that is possible. Back in 2013 I hardly used my $11.5K CL US Bank Platinum and then nearly maxed it out due to helping out a friend in a really bad situation (realllly long story). That and on top of many other issues going on (deaths in the family, health scares, etc.), I was not very good about making timely payments. Definitely not some of my proudest moments.
Anyways, Before I cleaned up my act, I was extremely lucky that US Bank only reported one 30 day late payment and ended up slashing my CL to $500, where it remains to this day (eventhough I've had a great payment history since then and they automatically give me CLI's on my Cash+). I know this will stay on my report for at least seven years and will not drop off until 2020. I think many in my shoes would write many goodwill letters to try to get this removed. My questions are:
1) Since I made more than one 30+ day late payments (and possibly even a 60+) is there risk that writing a goodwill letter could prompt them to report the other lates?
2) How much of the impact of the reported late gets diluted as time goes on before it drops off?
My gut is telling me just to leave it alone and let it drop off naturally in three years time since this truly was my bad and I got lucky, yet everytime I look at my reports I see that ugly late staring back at me and would love to see it disappear...
Thoughts?
Thanks!
