"Serious Delinquency"

[Anonymous]

does 1 dollar being owed to closed account count as "serious delinquency"?

is this a sum/measure of missed payments.. or both?

I had just paid off a closed Bank of America account and gotten it down to 0. This is when I applied for the Discover IT, though I am not sure what was reflected in my report. However, there was residual interest in the Bank of America account that made my balance $2.30 after having been 0. So, I guess the closed account stayed open and potentially registered as a "serious delinquency". Is it possible purely because that residual interest was charged later that having an account not indicating "paid off" or something of the sort - which is what I thought I did - triggered a "serious delinquency"? Because, again, I had paid that off

Is it a "serious delinquency" if the account is paid off but you missed payments?

[Anonymous]

Wha does your credit report say? Is it 30, 60, 90, 120 days late?

If you owed the $2.30 and didn't pay it, then the bank may have reported it as late. 

[Anonymous]

this is where it gets confusing.

but i guess my best bet is to call bank of america and see what they can do in regard to that account?

i dont think it was counted as late, i just had a 2.00 balance when i thought i had a 0 and it was completely paid off. so, when i went to apply, instead of it saying "paid off" i had a 2.00 balance on a delinquent account. the 2 dollars was due this month, but i have already paid it

[Anonymous]

Folks here can better advise you if they understand the timeline of events better.

(1)  You had a BOA credit card.

(2)  On date ______ you paid it to $0.  (What date?) 

Note: You describe it as a closed card that you paid to $0.  Does this mean that it had been closed before you paid it to $0?  Either way, can you tell us when it was closed?   _______

(3)  Were there any lates or bad marks on the account up to this point where you paid it $0?  E.g. a Day 30 late a year ago?

(4)  After you paid it to zero, the bank had still not finished assessing you for the interest you owed that month.  Therefore they charged you a few dollars of interest, which it sounds like you may not have realized at the time.  When was the date that they charged the final amount of extra interest?  ______

(5)  Since they charged you that interest, you have not paid any of it... correct?  (This is likely because you thought the balance was zero.)

The dates above do not have to be absolutely precise, just the best you can give.  (Past CC statements and past credit reports should enable you to answer the date questions.

It's unclear to me whether this $2 has been unpaid for seven months or for seven days.  The folks here can advise you best if they better understand what happened up till now.  Putting that timeline together will help you too if you need to beg for forgiveness from the CC issuer.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

does 1 dollar being owed to closed account count as "serious delinquency"?

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A serious delinquency in this case refers to not making a payment on time and suggests that it was at least 60 days late if not 90+ days late.  Dollar amounts when it comes to late payments do not matter.  $2 that isn't paid on time is equal to $2000 that isn't paid on time in terms of FICO scoring. 

It sounds like you need to pull a copy of your credit report.  You could start with a free service like Credit Karma to see what you're working with.  Take a look at the account in question and see if it was reported late.  My guess is it was, otherwise "serious delinquency" wouldn't be a negative reason code on your profile.  30 days late isn't considered serious, but 90 days or more is.  60 is sort of arguable, as some believe it is considered serious (a major rather than a minor) where others don't.  I don't.  I think 30's and 60's are similar, where 90+ is considered major/serious. 

CGID asks some good questions above.  If length of multiple months (say 4-5) went by after you paid the account to $0, for all you know that $2 balance could have been there and you had a $2 payment due.  By 5 months or so this could be at 90+ days late and reported as such.

If that happened to you, I feel your pain, as a $2.93 balance that I thought I paid off ended up going 90+ days late on one of my accounts several years ago.  It took a bit of time/work/persistence with the lender to get them to remove the negative reported information, but ultimately they did.  If this is your only major negative item, it's completely possible that it's holding back your FICO scores 50-80 points, give or take.  Removing it would be a great thing.