topic Re: Old Late Payment Query in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Old Late Payment Query

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:22:55 GMT

I've just joined, and I notice that my payment history in the FICO analysis is just "very good," while the only blemish on my record is from 2.5 years ago, when I was 30 days late on a credit card payment. I disputed that item with one credit reporting agency, and that agency reports "disputed billing procedure." My query: would it matter if I also dispute this charge in the same way with the other two credit reporting agencies?

For what it matters, the background: my claim--and the truth--is that the original charge was to a credit card that I rarely use, and when the company (Bank of America) sent me the statement the following month, there was no identifying information on the envelope concerning the sender, so I tossed the letter thinking it to be junk mail. Only the next month did I actually open the mystery mailing and discover that I was already late.

Re: Old Late Payment Query

MarineVietVet — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:13:10 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I've just joined, and I notice that my payment history in the FICO analysis is just "very good," while the only blemish on my record is from 2.5 years ago, when I was 30 days late on a credit card payment. I disputed that item with one credit reporting agency, and that agency reports "disputed billing procedure." My query: would it matter if I also dispute this charge in the same way with the other two credit reporting agencies?

For what it matters, the background: my claim--and the truth--is that the original charge was to a credit card that I rarely use, and when the company (Bank of America) sent me the statement the following month, there was no identifying information on the envelope concerning the sender, so I tossed the letter thinking it to be junk mail. Only the next month did I actually open the mystery mailing and discover that I was already late.

Welcome to the forums.

A single 30 day late that old is not doing much harm at this point but I understand about wanting to get rid of it. I wouldn't bother with disputing this with the CRA's. Many times disputes can have unexpected consequencies.

What you can try is sending what is called a GW (Good Will) letter asking that BoA remove this single bad item from the account. Results are mixed with the success rates of GW's but they do work. You can do a search on this site for "GW letters" to see what other people have approached this.

Good luck to you.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 9/09 pulled by lender 802
EQ - 7/06-663, 3/10-800
TU - 8/10-772
You can do the same thing with hard work

Re: Old Late Payment Query

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:54:36 GMT

Thanks! I will investigate this option.

Re: Old Late Payment Query

marty56 — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:03:46 GMT

@MarineVietVet wrote:
What you can try is ending what is called a GW (Good Will) letter asking that BoA remove this single bad item from the account. Results are mixed with the success rates of GW's but they do work. You can do a search on this site for "GW letters" to see what other people have approached this.

I would send them a GW letter but the success rate for BofA isn't very good. If you haven't done so, try to get the BofA card to zero balance since that will keep you AA proff in case BofA decides they don't like you GW letter. Good like with the GW and if you are successful, please lets us now since IMHO you would be the first one here that I am aware of.