topic Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points in General Credit Topics

late payment fico score down by 81 points

jony — Fri, 08 May 2015 14:39:14 GMT

Hi,

This is my first post here. Due to some past negligence and not knowing how the credit score system works, we were somewhere around 530s on all our credict scores. That's when I started using myFICO and rebuilt the credit to EQ 735 TU 666. Thanks to all the informative posts here.

Yesterday, EQ went from 735 to 654, 81 points down in one day. It shows I have a late payment on Walmart GE credit card by 60 days. Now the thing is I always set up the auto payment on all cards or accounts. I never revolve the credit. All accounts are paid in full every month. But I found even after trying setting up walmart credit card on auto payments, it never went thru.

So yesterday I paid account in full when I found out the late payment. Today I talked to walmart credit card support and requested to remove the delinquency remark. They refused to remove it saying we missed the payments last year too. I remember auto payment not working last year and I talked to customer care about that last year too. and late payments were paid within a week. We have maintained a good history with them.

Now I don't know if writing a GW letter would help me or not. and whom should I write it to Equifax, Walmart or Synchrony bank(account is sent them for collection). It took me almost 2.5 years to reach to EQ 735 and now I'm back to 654, 81 points down just due to one missed payment. I'm so much in shock. Please suggest me what to do.

Thank you

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Josh611 — Fri, 08 May 2015 15:03:07 GMT

Sorry to hear. This is why I will never trust autopay. I would much rather do it on my own

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Anonymous — Fri, 08 May 2015 17:55:58 GMT

@Josh611 wrote:
Sorry to hear. This is why I will never trust autopay. I would much rather do it on my own

Sorry to hear, OP. I have autopay on some of my accounts, but I have an alert on my phone the day before each is due reminding me to double check them. Maybe a system like that will help you too.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

EW800 — Fri, 08 May 2015 20:45:43 GMT

Sorry to hear of this. I am not a big fan of autopay either. All it takes is one glitch and it can take up to 7 years to recover or resolve.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Anonymous — Fri, 08 May 2015 21:04:59 GMT

Here is what I do:

1. Never use store cards. You wind up with too many cards to keep track of, and you WILL forget.

2. If you HAVE to break rule #1, to get a large discount say, then pay it off at once. Don't let it ride until the statement cuts. You WILL forget.

3. Set up autopay on all your cards BUT treat it is as a fallback -- try and pay in full before autopay cuts. One day it WILL fail.

On the two cards that I use all the time I have TWO autopays running. I have a push payment from my bank that runs $100 into both cards every month on statement cut date. Then I have the card's own autopay pull the full balance from my bank on the due date.

Why two? Because if one fails I don't get hit with a late payment. The $100 push payment is much less than I owe BUT it is going to be more than the minimum payment due. If the main autopay fails, worst case, interest on the difference between what I owed and $100. But no hit to my credit history.

I have the autopay run against an account linked to a line of credit. My goal is not to use that line of credit, to have the funds I need in place to pay my balance in full BUT if I ever do my sums wrong and don't have enough in the account to cover the credit card then it just runs the line of credit down. Again, the penalty for a mistake is interest charges on that PLOC, not a ding on my credit record.

Fingers crossed, this has kept me from missing payments due to my own mistake or somebody else's. I don't trust autopay AND I also don't trust my memory to be flawless. I have a system in place that allows a mistake here and there WITHOUT resulting in a missed payment.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Anonymous — Sat, 09 May 2015 00:14:33 GMT

Canadian in Seattle - thanks for the hints on autopay. I've just come out of major rebuilding mode and the autopay on my accounts has me nervous. BoA especially since they don't have a minimum or pif option like Chase -- just a set $$$ amount.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Anonymous — Sat, 09 May 2015 07:09:04 GMT

Yeah I don't like autopay, I'd much rather be in control of when and how much I'm paying exactly

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

MarineVietVet — Sat, 09 May 2015 10:36:30 GMT

I think autopay is an excellent tool and I use it for almost all my recurring bills but I also confirm that each and every scheduled payment has actually gone through as planned.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Anonymous — Sat, 09 May 2015 10:50:37 GMT

Op if you want to write goodwill letters, synch is the place to write them. Neither walmart no the cras can give you any satisfaction in that regard.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

lg8302ch — Sat, 09 May 2015 10:59:37 GMT

I have auto pay set up on all accounts for min payment and do manually pay before. That is my safety net in case I should forget to pay

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

disdreamin — Sat, 09 May 2015 11:51:54 GMT

OP, don't you receive statements for your accounts, even those on auto-pay, either electronically or by mail? I'm struggling to see how it would get to *two* missed payments unless you didn't read your statements or didn't reconcile your bank account at least once a month (and I can't imagine going that long without doing so).

The fact that this same thing happened last year with the same card should have put up red flags. I would think you would be very diligent about confirming the auto-pay went through each and every month to avoid a repeat of that scenario. And how did you catch it within one week last time but this time it was more than two months?!

And lastly, you aren't down 81 points due to one missed payment, you are down due to at least TWO MONTHS of missed payments. You went past the due date by *60 days* - or more! I'd do as others have suggested above, to try and avoid a recurrence of this.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Gunnar419 — Sat, 09 May 2015 14:42:29 GMT

@disdreamin wrote:
OP, don't you receive statements for your accounts, even those on auto-pay, either electronically or by mail? I'm struggling to see how it would get to *two* missed payments unless you didn't read your statements or didn't reconcile your bank account at least once a month (and I can't imagine going that long without doing so).

The fact that this same thing happened last year with the same card should have put up red flags. I would think you would be very diligent about confirming the auto-pay went through each and every month to avoid a repeat of that scenario. And how did you catch it within one week last time but this time it was more than two months?!

And lastly, you aren't down 81 points due to one missed payment, you are down due to at least TWO MONTHS of missed payments. You went past the due date by *60 days* - or more! I'd do as others have suggested above, to try and avoid a recurrence of this.

+1 OP, sorry you took such a hit, but disdreamin is right. With credit, you can't repeatedly let things slip, even if it is partly the fault of some malfunctioning automated system.

Here's what I do. Same as others have reported, I set up minimum autopays for every card*, including ones I seldom use. Then I also set up a variety of notifications on the cards so I get email when payments are due, I get email each week telling me the balance, etc.

As the payment date nears, I doublecheck my autopays, deleting (for that month only) the ones where I don't actually owe anything and increasing the ones where I have balances.

Then I make sure that the bank's billpay system notifies me when each payment goes out and I check my cc accounts a day or two later to make sure that the payment has been properly credited.

Does this sound obsessive or fanatical? Maybe. But it takes only a few minutes in all and it ensures that there are no slipups. Credit management demands personal attention and that's all there is to it.

* Personally I always push pay from my bank to the card rather than setting up payment via the card website. This lets me manage all my bills from one website, but that's a personal preference.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Anonymous — Sat, 09 May 2015 15:35:38 GMT

it won't hurt too bad for long. i have a 676 and i have one 30 day late and two 60 day late payments on my record.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Anonymous — Sat, 09 May 2015 17:27:15 GMT

I would definately write/call synchrony bank.. epsecially if you DID have AP on.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

MarineVietVet — Sat, 09 May 2015 22:29:39 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
it won't hurt too bad for long. i have a 676 and i have one 30 day late and two 60 day late payments on my record.

Be careful about generalizations.

Your experience may not be the same for anyone else.

Every credit profile is different.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

jony — Sat, 09 May 2015 23:39:34 GMT

Hi disdreamin,

Thank you for the reply.

In spite of having autopay, I always check all the accounts(credit cards, elec, water) online every few days just in case something goes wrong. And whenever I see any payment posted I pay it manually even though the auto payment is scheduled. because of this habit last year I found out within a week that the payment did not go thru in Walmart CC so I paid it. and after that I repeated the process of setting an autopay.

This time I was travelling around for few months and didn't really use walmart except that one time. And totally forgot to check online. No email from walmart about late payment but did received email from synchrony bank just few days back. I missed it I know it's totally my fault. Now what I don't get it is why I received the email only after more than 30 days and also no call. Recently, my cell service payment has been declined(autopay from a business card), the same day I received an sms and a call from the wireless network guys and I made payment the same day. I was very impressed about their service.

I talked to walmart customer support, a very nice lady she waived off the late payment charge even without asking and gave me an address to which I can send a goodwill letter. Let's see how it goes.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Anonymous — Sun, 10 May 2015 00:27:51 GMT

@jony wrote:
Hi disdreamin,

Thank you for the reply.
In spite of having autopay, I always check all the accounts(credit cards, elec, water) online every few days just in case something goes wrong. And whenever I see any payment posted I pay it manually even though the auto payment is scheduled. because of this habit last year I found out within a week that the payment did not go thru in Walmart CC so I paid it. and after that I repeated the process of setting an autopay.

This time I was travelling around for few months and didn't really use walmart except that one time. And totally forgot to check online. No email from walmart about late payment but did received email from synchrony bank just few days back. I missed it I know it's totally my fault. Now what I don't get it is why I received the email only after more than 30 days and also no call. Recently, my cell service payment has been declined(autopay from a business card), the same day I received an sms and a call from the wireless network guys and I made payment the same day. I was very impressed about their service.

I talked to walmart customer support, a very nice lady she waived off the late payment charge even without asking and gave me an address to which I can send a goodwill letter. Let's see how it goes.

Good to hear.. Hopefully, it works out for you. Keep us posted.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Anonymous — Sun, 10 May 2015 02:20:44 GMT

BofA autopay sucks... it is so hard to find and even harder to setup....

Why do I need to give them my account number???? they already have it!!! give me a dropdown!!!

And why does it take 2 months to setup?

I'll tell you why, it is a damn form that generate an email to someone... lazy IT department!!!!

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Anonymous — Sun, 10 May 2015 12:05:27 GMT

I love autopay and use it religiously, but I also check out the statements each month. That way, if it didn't go through, I can immediately push a payment without CRA consequences, because it isn't 30 days late yet. I also call the company and get them to reissue the late fee, since it was on autopay. I only had this happen once, but I'm glad I caught it in the end.

Re: late payment fico score down by 81 points

Anonymous — Sun, 17 May 2015 21:04:28 GMT

Ask your bank the payment should have drafted from, to see if Synchrony initiated the payment but never completed the transaction. I have several lates from a few years ago because of this. My bank was able to verify they got the request for the money and my bank responded but the transaction was not completed by Dell and G.E./Synchrony. (Separate accounts)

Not sure if your bank can provide evidence of this if it is the case. I didn't request proof from my bank at the time because I didn't realize how late the payments were. Dell has been very good to me as far as credit and reporting. Synchrony is not giving me any love.

I am hearing good success with Synchrony for some folks. Hope your situation turns into one of those.