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I like Prisim over Mint, but both do the same job and I have both. I find them indespensible.
Autopay is highly recomended on this forum but I like to be in control of my payments. Alerts help with that.
Finally, getting all your payments to group around paydays, requires you to only really check each time your have money to pay.
All that being said, the effect of going a week or two past your due date is only a late fee, not a 30 day late. You have to miss the months payment entirely to score a FICO late. As has been mentioned your sever score drop is more indicative of a 60 day or more late.
@Anonymous wrote:
I also did credit simulator where it says if i pay off the 6k to get my utilization to 0 my score would jump back up close to 800, which i dont believe but ill give it a try in a few mpre pay checks..
That's complete and utter BS. You stated in your initial post that your utilization was at 12% or so. That means you only have 1 threshold that can be crossed at 8.9% to see a score gain related to your utilization. Crossing that threshold would yield you something to the tune of 15 points, give or take, meaning you'd be close to a 700 score, not 800. The only thing that will get you close to 800 again is getting that late payment removed... so definitely try contacting the creditor. Doing it sooner rather than later could be beneficial. Strike while the iron is hot and don't wait. If you get a negative result, I'd strongly suggest looking into the GW Saturation Technique, which you can read about here if you're interested:
I think everything's been covered. All I can add is that I once looked at my Android and saw to my horror that I was a day late with my minimum payment to Amex. I called and spoke to a CSR and told her I would PIF immediately. I also pointed out that I'd never been late on any payment at any time to any creditor. She said she would adjust my account so that the late payment would not be reported, but the late fee would remain. The next day, I called and got another CSR and he said he would reverse the late fee. Since then, alarms are set on all my calendars and auto-payments set up.
Even though I'm a professional-level procrastinator, I think the fast move is what saved me. Delaying probably weakens your argument. Plus, you're looking at Capital One.
Best of luck!
Well, I can personally attest that a 30D late isn't the end of the world. I too was a victim of an account with a recurring charge that I thought I'd cancelled, that didn't have autopay support. Highly recommend autopaying the minimum, actually I flatly refuse to accept an account anymore that doesn't support autopay.
Before I ran up my HELOC which appears to be penalizing me on all mortgage scores, I still could clear 740 which is the highest tier Fannie/Freddie underwrite at. Actually even with the debt it wasn't terrible, EX FICO 2 is the score worth looking at but this was the change for when a fairly recent 30D (April 2018) just came off my EX report spontaneously:
Date | 12/26/18 | 12/27/18 |
FICO 8 | 746 | 801 |
FICO 2 | 722 | 753 |
FICO 8 AU | 747 | 808 |
FICO 2 AU | 700 | 728 |
FICO 8 BC | 769 | 829 |
FICO 3 | 679 | 724 |
FICO 2 BC | 726 | 759 |
I am probably losing about 20 points for the highly utilized account would be my guess, so the 30D late does fade fairly quickly over the first year even from the 100 point initial tumble.
It doesn't hurt to call, Cap 1 may not play ball but it's only a little bit of time. Also depending what your mortgage timing is it might not make that much difference at all honestly if the rest of your file is clean.
@CreditInspired wrote:
OP
So sorry. Yep, it’s real funky when it happens.
@Anonymous with @Oldman’s suggestion, also set reminder alerts. Hand to Gawd, I’m so worried about a mishap, I have an Outlook reminder, a bank reminder, and a CC reminder on all my CCs. It’s obsessive behavior but I too worked hard to get my scores where they are. I have autopay setup too, and I also scan my bank and CC accounts daily to ensure nothing is awry.
So get in the habit of being—well not quite as obsessive as me—overly observant.
I do this too! I have an app for all my cards on my phone and will check each and every one in the morning with my coffee. I have auto pay for everything for at least the minimum and have even set up reminders in my phone in case the reminders I signed up for with the cards doesn't come through. I'm the most forgetful person, so I need to do these kinds of things if I want to succeed.
@Anonymous wrote:
It's quite bewildering. You work so hard to establish good credit, only to watch it come crashing down. These scoring "methodologies " are unforgiving. It's just stunning how quickly the scoring formula drops your score, but yet it takes months, if not, years for one score to rebound. It's all sickening.
I don't agree with that. The only thing that can cause dramatic score drops (or gains) are a change to the payment history sector of the FICO pie or dramatic changes to the amounts owed sector. Both of those slices of the FICO pie make up 2/3 of score and are the biggest factors for assessing risk. Individuals are in direct control of making on-time payments and keeping utilization low. If their scores come crashing down, it's because of one or both of these factors being abused.