My Lates Are Disappearing on Two Closed CC Accounts. What the . . .?

[Jannelo]

So a month ago I received an alert from WalletHub.  It congratulated me on my on-time payments or something.   I really can't remember.  But I click on, and it's showing two closed secured credit card accounts (same CC company) with changes on my late payments. The credit cards were secured, but once I defaulted, they just closed them, but no charge off.  They took the secured amounts and closed them as paid in full. 

So all this time one CC had five late payments listed:  30, 60, 30, 60, 90.   It was now only showing one 90-day late on it a month ago.  The other one always showed three lates:  30, 60, 90.  Now it's showing zero late payments.  This is only appearing on Equifax and TransUnion.   Experian still shows all of the lates on both cards.  I went back and checked all the credit reports I had pulled.  It appears the change in reporting the lates on Equifax and TransUnion happened as far back as July.  But it gets even weirder.   Today I checked, and on Equifax and TransUnion, now the one remaining 90-day late is gone.  Both closed CCs are now showing as always paid on time and exceptional payment history.  Experian is still unchanged and all lates showing.

I'm not complaining, but has anyone ever had this happen to them before?   These accounts were closed back in the fall of 2015.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it happens.  My utility company - WE Energies - reported monthly to the credit bureaus. I was unaware of this and during the winter months I'd take my sweet time to pay knowing because of the winter disconnection moratorium they couldn't take action.  A few years ago when I started looking into my credit I saw that I had 38 late payments with them.  Last year I contacted them asking for a goodwill adjustment and they removed 6 of the late payments which of course did nothing for my score but I was grateful anyway.  Then earlier this year they changed their policy and stopped reporting to the credit bureaus and purged their files from the bureaus; and just like that 20-odd late payments disappeared for me.

Surprisingly the impact of their removal with only about 15 points so I'm guessing that FICO scores utility payment differently than loans and credit cards.

[zerofire]

Sometimes people make mistakes. That is the whole point of secured credit cards. They are designed to help you enter the credit world again while making the issuer some money and showing you can pay on time so they might consider backing you later. Now I am not sure who the issuer is for your accounts but there is a good chance that they just were forgiving. They also cannot send you to collections since the account is secured. You lose your security instead of getting the collection. Did you get whatever was left over from the security or did they take the whole thing? I have never had a secured card so am curious.

[Jannelo]

---

@zerofire wrote:

Sometimes people make mistakes. That is the whole point of secured credit cards. They are designed to help you enter the credit world again while making the issuer some money and showing you can pay on time so they might consider backing you later. Now I am not sure who the issuer is for your accounts but there is a good chance that they just were forgiving. They also cannot send you to collections since the account is secured. You lose your security instead of getting the collection. Did you get whatever was left over from the security or did they take the whole thing? I have never had a secured card so am curious.T

---

 They took it all.  I understand about the secured part and losing my security.   I just don't get why four years later, out of the blue,  all of the lates disappear off of Equifax and TransUnion but are still on Experian.  It's odd.  I don't know why they disappeared and the "paid on time" designation is put on those months instead.  Still, it's very happy news.  I just wish all the lates would disappear off of Experian also.   LOL

They are First Progress secured Mastercards.

[zerofire]

---

@Jannelo wrote:

---

@zerofire wrote:

Sometimes people make mistakes. That is the whole point of secured credit cards. They are designed to help you enter the credit world again while making the issuer some money and showing you can pay on time so they might consider backing you later. Now I am not sure who the issuer is for your accounts but there is a good chance that they just were forgiving. They also cannot send you to collections since the account is secured. You lose your security instead of getting the collection. Did you get whatever was left over from the security or did they take the whole thing? I have never had a secured card so am curious.T

---

 They took it all.  I understand about the secured part and losing my security.   I just don't get why four years later, out of the blue,  all of the lates disappear off of Equifax and TransUnion but are still on Experian.  It's odd.  I don't know why they disappeared and the "paid on time" designation is put on those months instead.  Still, it's very happy news.  I just wish all the lates would disappear off of Experian also.   LOL

They are First Progress secured Mastercards.

---

First Progress, that explains a lot. They are a junk lender with enough fees that the product is designed to drown you. They might have wanted to save money. Lately Experian has been a hard company to deal with. They are not fans of removing anything unless it expires.