Will telling CCC making late payment make a difference?

[Anonymous]

I am not quite a month late in making my payment to one of my CC.  If I contact them to tell them that I will be making a payment by the end of the month, will it make a difference? 

I've been trying to rebuild my credit and I've been more than a year paying on time and no lates.  I don't want my CR score to take a dive because of one late payment. 

I was thinking if I contacted them by email letting them know that I will make the payment by the end of the month and also to request that no additional fees and/or negative reporting take place.

Thank you for your help.

[Anonymous]

kawgirl123,   It is much better if you keep in contact with your creditor(s) if there is a problem making a payment. The sooner you call the better things should work out. I know that on some loans you can skip a payment and have it added on at the end of the loan. Then it won't show up as a missed payment.

I cannot guarantee how the credit card company will handle it, but I am sure they would rather have a late payment than no payment. If you don't contact them it will count against you. If you call they will be much more willing to work with you.

Good luck.

[Lel]

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kawgirl23 wrote:

I am not quite a month late in making my payment to one of my CC.  If I contact them to tell them that I will be making a payment by the end of the month, will it make a difference? 

I've been trying to rebuild my credit and I've been more than a year paying on time and no lates.  I don't want my CR score to take a dive because of one late payment. 

I was thinking if I contacted them by email letting them know that I will make the payment by the end of the month and also to request that no additional fees and/or negative reporting take place.

Thank you for your help.

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A few times in the last several years I have spaced off my credit card payment.  I only missed the due date by a few days, and when I discovered my error I called them right away.  Because my payment history had otherwise been good, they accepted a phone payment, removed all the late fees/excess finance charges, and I was not reported as late to the credit reporting agencies.

It doesn't hurt to call to see if you can garner the same kind of goodwill.  If your payment history is checkered, then you might not get any results. 

[MattH]

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@Lel wrote:

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A few times in the last several years I have spaced off my credit card payment.  I only missed the due date by a few days, and when I discovered my error I called them right away.  Because my payment history had otherwise been good, they accepted a phone payment, removed all the late fees/excess finance charges, and I was not reported as late to the credit reporting agencies.

It doesn't hurt to call to see if you can garner the same kind of goodwill.  If your payment history is checkered, then you might not get any results. 

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Before I switched to paying most bills online (which makes it much easier for me to keep track), maybe once or twice a year I would forget some bill until I got the polite reminder.  In every case upon being reminded I called their 800 number immediately to set up a direct debit from my bank account.

None of them ever reported any lates on my credit history.

The keys of course were (1) paying immediately upon being reminded, (2) having otherwise good history with them, and (3) always having enough in the bank to at least pay the minimum instantaneously.

Now that I do my finances online, I no longer forget to pay my bills.  Two tricks I use to make it easier to avoid late fees are (1) if I happen not to owe a regular creditor anything this month I make an electronic payment to them of exactly five dollars, and (2) if I plan on paying the full balance close to the due date, then I make an immediate payment of the minimum payment.  The purpose of (1) is that I find it's easier to verify that I'm current if I pay something to all regular creditors every month.  At least once a week I check all my accounts online, and if it's been more than three weeks since I paid somebody that means I had better find what I owe them and pay it right away.  The purpose of (2) is so that if my payment of the full balance doesn't arrive before due date, at least the minimum gets paid well before due date.