topic Re: Advice on getting score to go up in Rebuilding Your Credit

30 day late Ford Motor Credit/Home Refinance

hockeymom2119 — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 05:35:41 GMT

Hello, I have a question about my situation. My credit score was 638 with about 95% or more utilization of my credit cards. I am a cosigner on my son's Ford Motor Credit auto loan beginning in 2011. He lost his job and told me he was about to be 30 days late. I paid the payment on the 30th day, but because their policy is that payments post two days later, I now have a 30 late reporting on my credit report. I called and got no where. I got a MyFico alert that my score went from 638 to 586 that day. I've sent a goodwill letter, and am awaiting a response. Also at this same time, I was in the process of refinancing my house. Luckily, the late payment posted after my home refiance was finalized. I cashed out enough to have all of my credit cards and a small personal loan paid in full (totalling about $15K). The only loan I should have left are my mortgage (never late) and a student loan that has about a $4k balance (never late). How long will it take for my score to go back up if Ford doesn't take the late off? Will having my credit cards paid in full make any difference since I now have the 30 day late?

Re: 30 day late Ford Motor Credit/Home Refinance

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 08:49:45 GMT

Paying your debt off will help immensely but the ding of a recent derog will hurt for the first couple of years. I will assume your score was so low due to the high util. Now that iyou are rev debt free, your score should recover.

Keep writing the GW letters and for max FICO scoring you should let one card report a sm bal. if you are not applying for any loans, I wouldn't worry about your score now. What's important is you are practically debt free and your overall credit report has improved. If necessary, you can explain the 30 day late on recon.

Re: 30 day late Ford Motor Credit/Home Refinance

RobertEG — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 19:20:45 GMT

A delinquency is not reportable as a 30-late to a CRA simply because it was not paid by the billing due date.

You are delinquent under your account agreement if payment is not made by the billing due date.

However a reportable late to a CRA is based on being more than 30 days past the billing due date, not simple delinquency based on your account agreement.

That fact is stated repeatedly in the CRA reporting manual, and is not a subject of controversy.

You thus have a 30 day window after the account becomes delinquent to bring it into good-standing before it can be reported to a CRA.

If you paid late, but prior to expiration of 30 days past the billing due date, you have clear basis for dispute of the accuracy of their reporting.

Re: 30 day late Ford Motor Credit/Home Refinance

hockeymom2119 — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 01:44:11 GMT

I paid it on the 30th day past the billing date. If they would have credited that day, I wouldn't have been late, but their policy is that payments post two days later. I even tried to call in a payment and would have paid an additional fee if it would have been credited that day, but that's now how Ford works. I made the payment so hopefully they will respond positively to my GW letter.

Re: 30 day late Ford Motor Credit/Home Refinance

denver133 — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 02:08:07 GMT

Bummer about the payment. Like other have said, send in those GW letters until they make that change.

Once your credit cards report the $0 balance, you will see a huge shoot up in your score. Keep it under 9% and you will be good.

Re: 30 day late Ford Motor Credit/Home Refinance

RobertEG — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 08:36:49 GMT

Then it is not a reportable 30-late with the CRAs.

As for their posting policy, you might check out the Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA) for stated requirements for posting of payments made before, I believe, 6PM on the due date.

Re: 30 day late Ford Motor Credit/Home Refinance

hockeymom2119 — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 15:12:11 GMT

Thank you for the reply. I am going to give them this week to respond (hopefully with good news) and if not, I will look into disputing it further. I checked on the FCBA, and that doesn't apply here it seems. It does not cover installment loans such as car loans.

Re: 30 day late Ford Motor Credit/Home Refinance

hockeymom2119 — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 22:34:20 GMT

UPDATE - my mortgage refinance went through. I was afraid during the last few days of processing they would run my credit one more time and find the new late payment. Thankfully, that didn't happen. I just sent payment in full to all of my credit cards and the one personal loan I had. I'm really hoping my score goes up a lot. I still haven't heard from Ford Motor about the GW letter I sent. I called them, and they said they had it and were still reviewing it and would send me a note with their decision. When I told them that it was my son's car, and he let me know on the 30th day that he couldn't pay, she told me basically I needed to work on communication with my son - not call them to ask for a GW adjustment. She was pretty rude.

I have another question now. I pulled my credit report, and the 30 day late from Ford is there. The status is "30 days late" where everything else is "pays as agreed". I had one 30 day late on a credit card about two years ago. The status for this is "pays as agreed" instead of "30 days late". I never noticed when that status may have changed. Does anyone know when they change your status to "pays as agreed" after a 30 day late payment - is it the next month if you are caught up? Is there a certain time frame for your status to change?

Advice on getting score to go up

hockeymom2119 — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 18:01:30 GMT

Hello all, I have a couple of questions.

I am a co-signer on my son's auto loan with FMC. While I was in the process of refinancing my house, my son told me he was unable to make his car payment and it was about to be 30 days late. At this exact time, my FICO score was about 638-640. My re-fi was in the final stages, and I was scared a late payment would get my re-fi approval pulled. I also didn't want a 30 day late on my credit, so I agreed to pay it. Unfortunately, come to find out when I made the payment that morning, I was several hours late. I would have needed to pay it be midnight the night before to not be considered 30 days late. Luckily, my mortage company never found out and my re-fi went through. However, I got a score watch alert that my score dropped to 568 because of the 30 day late. I took money out in my re-fi to pay off all of my revolving credit card debt, appx $16k (all cards basically maxed out) and one personal loan, about $4500. I've paid everything off. Only one of my cards has reported paid off so far for about 2K, and got another score watch alert that my score went up 5 points to 573. I've sent a goodwill letter to FMC, but haven't heard anything yet. The only debt now is the new re-fi mortage and a student loan with Sallie Mae.

My question is will my score go up (hopefully dramatically) since I have no more revolving credit card debt even though I have a recent 30 day late on an auto loan?

Will my score go down because I have a new account (new mortgage)?

Is it best to keep all of these cards at a zero balance all the time or should I charge something minimal on all of them occasionally?

I've read here that you need to have a mix of credit. Is just a mortage and student loan with occasional credit card a good mix?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Re: Advice on getting score to go up

theagent26 — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 20:52:01 GMT

Hello hockeymom,

Not sure I can answer all of your questions. In response to the one about keeping your cards at zero I'd say try to have 5% utilization on one card with the rest of them showing a zero balance. This seems to be the optimal way to have your utilization reporting on the FICO scoring model.

You should get some points back from the cards reporting low to zero after having all of them maxed out. Utilization is a large factor in scoring so it really helps to keep it low.

If that missed payment was recent I would try calling FMC and explaining what happened. You'd be surprised sometimes you might get somewhere over the phone. If not, goodwill them to death. I've removed 12 collections from my credit just from goodwill letters.

One more thing, I think this post would probably get more responses in the Credit Rebuilding forum. Hope I was of some help to you. Good luck with everything!

Re: Advice on getting score to go up

hockeymom2119 — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 01:11:53 GMT

Thank you, Theagent26. Yes, this does help. I'm so happy to now see zeros I don't want to see any other numbers! I did call FMC. When I explained that my son didn't tell me until the last day of the grace period, she said "well, maybe you should work on your communication with your son." It was really hard not to tell her what I thought. She said they had my GW letter, and someone would get back to me. I'll wait a little longer and call again or send another letter. I'm not giving up.

Mods, can you please move this thread as suggested, I'm not sure how to do that, or if I am even able to do that.

Re: Advice on getting score to go up

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 01:46:19 GMT

Moving to join with earlier post.

OP, to avoid confusion, please refrain from posting duplicate threads across multiple boards.

Thank you,

Lexie, Moderator.