topic Re: American Express late 30 days in Rebuilding Your Credit

American Express late 30 days

Caldric — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 15:36:53 GMT

Thought I would post this here, I have read some of the other posts on this subject but thought I would ask.

I have a 30 day late on Amex Blue Cash (think name), what happened was the card had zero balance and I bought pizza just to use it and show some activity and didn't think much of it after that. I had autopay on Amex for 8 years or so and for some reason it was not setup anymore after I paid off the card I am not sure because the payment bank account didn't change, nothing change it just stopped using autopay.

So 20 dollars cost me 50 dollars and hit my credit report pretty hard, 50 or 60 points lost. Would it be worth maybe writing good will letter? Never late on any account but this one got me. I did dispute it online but that was returned in 1 day on experian and 2 days on Equifax/Transunion as accurate.

Re: American Express late 30 days

md_rebuild — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 15:56:45 GMT

Ouch.

I would definitely suggest the goodwill letter route, there's absolutely nothing to lose.

This is why I check all of my cards at least 3x a week. Because after my BK7, I am terrified of something like this happening and causing a setback on my rebuild.

Re: American Express late 30 days

FireMedic1 — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 15:58:44 GMT

Never hurts to try a GW letter. But you just have to stay on top of all accounts all the time. Even if you dont use the card. Few minutes once a week login and make sure all is well. Good luck.

Re: American Express late 30 days

FireMedic1 — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 16:02:41 GMT

@md_rebuild wrote:
Ouch.

I would definitely suggest the goodwill letter route, there's absolutely nothing to lose.

This is why I check all of my cards at least 3x a week. Because after my BK7, I am terrified of something like this happening and causing a setback on my rebuild.

This ^^^^^^ Beat me by 2 mins Doc.

Re: American Express late 30 days

Caldric — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 16:12:53 GMT

Yeah totally my fault no doubt about it, a little for them though for autopay ending weird that. Will not happen again!!! I will for sure be checking.

Re: American Express late 30 days

FireMedic1 — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 16:16:49 GMT

@Caldric wrote:
Yeah totally my fault no doubt about it, a little for them though for autopay ending weird that. Will not happen again!!! I will for sure be checking.

Was it the same bank linked to the account? Any changes at all that it didnt go thru that you could find. Something changed somewhere @Caldric

Re: American Express late 30 days

Caldric — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 16:20:34 GMT

No same bank account I have used for years, when I caught it being late I just clicked pay and it paid full balance without adding new bank account. I pay to zero balance on a couple of cards first time that ever happened to me.

Re: American Express late 30 days

FireMedic1 — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 16:22:58 GMT

Happened to me years ago. (20?) Of course it wasnt their fault. I dont use it just because of that. I like to handle my own transactions. Not a computer. My utilities and cell is all i do.

Re: American Express late 30 days

Winfoxee11 — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 17:28:02 GMT

@Caldric It was absolutely worth it for me. I emailed my GW letter to the CEO on 3/12. He replied 15 mins later (on a Sunday) that he would have someone in his office look into this and get back to me. 3 days later his assistant called me to inform me the 30 day late would be removed from my payment history. The very next week a letter from amex came stating an update has been forwarded to the credit reporting agencies and it may take 30 days for the agencies to comply. It was removed and updated within a month of my email. This was for both my EveryDay & BCE.

Do it.

Re: American Express late 30 days

Caldric — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 18:10:38 GMT

That is awesome! I will give it a try for sure now. Will just write out how it happened and was a total accident not intentional or unable to pay the 20 dollars payment. Just missed the autopay changing.

Thanks

Re: American Express late 30 days

Winfoxee11 — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 18:15:14 GMT

Exactly. Good luck!!

Re: American Express late 30 days

IamWesty12 — Sat, 15 Jul 2023 11:55:54 GMT

@Caldric wrote:
Thought I would post this here, I have read some of the other posts on this subject but thought I would ask.

I have a 30 day late on Amex Blue Cash (think name), what happened was the card had zero balance and I bought pizza just to use it and show some activity and didn't think much of it after that. I had autopay on Amex for 8 years or so and for some reason it was not setup anymore after I paid off the card I am not sure because the payment bank account didn't change, nothing change it just stopped using autopay.

So 20 dollars cost me 50 dollars and hit my credit report pretty hard, 50 or 60 points lost. Would it be worth maybe writing good will letter? Never late on any account but this one got me. I did dispute it online but that was returned in 1 day on experian and 2 days on Equifax/Transunion as accurate.

@Caldric you certainly aren't alone with this situation, but fingers crossed the GW works in your favor. Like others have stated, you have nothing to lose. I had a wonky thing happen to my GMC lease two years ago. I had never been late with them (close to 7 years of leasing straight) and my payment was made on the GMC app with a confirmation number. I also had the appropriate monies in my bank account for the payment. A pending recurring payment was apparently getting qued up to process behind the scenes as well and my bank (at the time) kicked out my GMC payment and GMC only processed my rewards points that I used at the same time to bring down my balance was processed and applied to my lease payment. Long story sort of shorter, I ended up with my only 30 day late payment with GMC and I tried several times for a GW request and NOTHING. Always received the canned letter stating "GMC is required by law to report accurant information". Yes of course they are. I then started to email the CEO directly, Mary Barra and to my surprise, I started getting calls from the GMC Executive Response Team. Excitement quickly ended when they simply replied with their version of damage control stating while they sympathize with my situation, they can't help me. I sent probably more emails basically stating the unique quirkiness to what happened and reminded them of being a loyal customer for over 7 years without ever having a late payment and to this day, they have not budged. Overall this was my responsibility and I dropped the ball as I shoudl have been paying more attention to my accounts and for that I have certainly learned to do so and have done so ever since. But the old stories of companies and their relationships with their customers fell by the way side at least for me. It was so upseting for me though to think that they would not even take into consideration, especially during the height of the pandemic, that this was truly not a pattern from me. I don't want to imply the pandemic was the reason but during this time and all the stress on us all, it just added to things. I had to transition to working overnight in the ER as a single parent when I had always worked a clincial shift of days M-F. I tried to explain all of this to them many times over and no help or consideration of them taking away the 30 day late mark. At least this was my smack in the face to smarten up and be more on top of my finances, which thankfully I have done since. But my scores on all three plummeted b/w 36-50 points .

Keep us posted, I am sending positive vibes your way. PS sorry for the long reply. I haven't been on the forum lately