Rebuilding Your Credit

[naf]

After a long, hard struggle I painfully pulled score up to 818. Now, because of somethingstupid on my part, it's dropped to 700. I'mnorth sure what happened, but I don't recallreceiving a bill and because of it Imissed a payment- the first in many, many years. Is 700 an iffstoa ore and is there ANYTHING I can do to rectify this?

[guiness56]

One single 30 day late will impact your score severely when it first hits but you will recover quickly with on time payments.  The lates impact will fade over the next 2 years.

The higher your score the harder the fall when something like this happens.

You could send a GW letter, explaining your circumstances and ask for the furnisher to remove it.

[RobertEG]

How late was your payment?  You have a window of 30 days after the billing due date to pay without it becoming a reportable 30-late.

Being late is not, in and of itself, a reportable late.

I would also check out the billing rights provisions of the Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA). 

If you had no billing statement, unless your account agreement requires payment absent a billing statement, you may have cause to contest a delinquency under the FCBA dispute process.

[llecs]

OP, pull all 3 reports to see what happened.