A quick summary of my situation: I have a student loan with five major negatives from 2010. 3 60 day lates and 2 90 day lates all from 2010. What made these even worse is that they each reported four distinct times (despite the fact that I pay my student loan company one lump sum each month, it's technically four separate loans for credit reporting purposes).
Well, today I received a call in response to a goodwill letter I had written that all of these delinquencies would no longer be reported. This is a HUGE win for me, as I'm sure you can imagine and I can not wait to see what impact this has when it finally reports. In an effort to "give back" to the group, I figured it was worth summarizing what I think are the key components of the letter that yielded these results.
- This was actually my second attempt. My first attempt went to general customer service, whereas my second was directly to the CFO. I sincerely believe that made all the difference and would encourage folks to respectfully reach out to actual people after failing with a faceless, nameless black hole of an email alias.
- I opened the letter with a review of my exemplary payment history since early 2010, where I have not missed a single payment and even paid off a loan in full. I also believe this was absolutely critical - not just to have been an ideal customer for years but to explicitly point it out. I know not everyone can leverage this "pointer" because it may not apply, but I have to believe any positive you can point out goes a long way towards getting them to listen. And towards that end I really do believe it's best to lead with that reminder (versus leading with the request).
- I appealed to the disparate impact, so to speak, of the account effectively quadrupling its negatives by reporting four times.
- Finally, I ended the letter by asking only that they genuinely consider the context of my request. I admitted it was unusual; I admitted it was at their discretion and I owned the mistake. In short, I threw myself on the mercy of the court rather than making excuses or painting it such that I expected them to do this out of some sense of entitlement.
To be honest, this was probably an easier situation than most (I'll find out when I try to do the same with a few other minor cc lates from the same time period). They get a sizable amount of money from me each month and I've been a very, very easy customer for them since my 2010 issues. It may very well be that any letter would have worked given that, but I'd like to believe it helped.
Happy to answer any questions.
Starting Score: 578 (3/11/13)
Grats to your success, enjoy 
@Focker69 wrote:
What was the name of the student loan company? Was it Sallie Mae?
No...it's a smaller, regional student loan company, which may be part of what made them more willing to accomodate the request than one of the giants.
WTG Awesome job!! My GW letters are still being rejected, process has been going for the past few years and still no luck.
congrats
Confession: I now find myself refreshing ScoreWatch hourly - like a 16 year old girl on facebook or something. I know it won't hit for the better part of a month, but I'm dying to see the impact on this one.