Discover single late payment - am I screwed?

[dannydowonahn]

Have 8y of history across 5 cards, Discover being the oldest one. Discover says autopay failed in Feb and I didn't find out until recently, so now I have a 120D late on my otherwise clean report. Called up the rep and explained that I got no emails/phone calls/letters about this otherwise inactive card so I had no way of knowing this had gone delinquent (all of this is true, wondering if I can appeal with digital evidence. I don't have any emails or phone calls from them), but she gave the standard "legally must report this because it wasn't a Discover error"

Am I just stuck waiting out the 7 years for this? Went from 790s down to 641. Any chance of goodwill letters helping? Doesn't look like folks have much luck with Discover GW from searching the forums.

[Jnbmom]

Is  this is a balance you had from February? You mentioned an inactive card? Unfortunately if something goes wrong with your autopsy it's really on you . I doubt that discover will budge considering this went to 120 days . Even when I have cards on autopay I keep track when payment comes out and it's always best to check your account activity a few times a month . Sorry this happened 

[CreditCuriosity]

I doubt they will do anything with 120 late.  Did you not notice in four months nothing was being removed from your checking account as you had to know you had a balance.  You can certainly try on good willing them and pay off the balance, but it will be a tough sell

[Priory_Man]

I think maybe if you'd caught it at 30 days, you might have had a slim chance of working with DISCO, but at 120, unfortunately I think you are going to be stuck with it for 7 years.
It's not the end of the world, overtime your scores will recover but it is going to take a number of years.

[dannydowonahn]

Thanks for the reply. I never use this card but I guess a stray Amazon payment decided to charge it back in Feb and I just didn't notice, most everything else flows through my Chase. And because I never use this card, it's autopay was hooked up to an old routing number that didn't go through. I immediately paid off the balance as soon as I found out.

Planning on sending a few goodwill letters explaining the situation and hoping for some relief - Discover is my first and oldest card. But yea sounds like I'm just screwed for the next 7 years. Any idea if I'll still qualify for mortgages in a year or two? That's my only concern, I have tons of spare credit limit across my other cards so I doubt I'll open any new ones soon anyways.

[Priory_Man]

---

@dannydowonahn wrote:

Thanks for the reply. I never use this card but I guess a stray Amazon payment decided to charge it back in Feb and I just didn't notice, most everything else flows through my Chase. And because I never use this card, it's autopay was hooked up to an old routing number that didn't go through. I immediately paid off the balance as soon as I found out.

Planning on sending a few goodwill letters explaining the situation and hoping for some relief - Discover is my first and oldest card. But yea sounds like I'm just screwed for the next 7 years. Any idea if I'll still qualify for mortgages in a year or two? That's my only concern, I have tons of spare credit limit across my other cards so I doubt I'll open any new ones soon anyways.

---

Obviously your score will still be affected in a year, maybe a little less in 2 years, with a 120 day late you maybe looking at 4 years before it only has minimal effect. I would suggest you start on the goodwill letters and send them often, if you are looking to buy a house in the next couple of years.

[GZG]

120s hurt pretty much all the way through

keep at the goodwill letters and keep trying to get them to acknowledge the autopay failure as their fault so they might be more willing to offer a goodwill adjustment

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Credit-Scoring-Primer-pub-5-17-20/td-p/6... 

[dannydowonahn]

Well now that the initial wave of depression and resignation has passed, now feeling hopeful I can recover in a few years. I'm hoping underwriters will be able to look past this single mark as a legimate mistake on an otherwise flawless report, especially given the amount is miniscule ($100 late payment / $80k total credit limit).

Regardless, going to make a few more calls and try for a GW adjustment over the phone before sending out the first round of GW letters. I know Discover is historically a tough nut to crack, but going to keep this thread updated as datapoints for the community.

[Rogue46]

It's not the end of the world but it will hurt for awhile. Just make it a habit to check each account at least once a month. I set a few minutes aside every Sunday to do this because I'm paranoid of screwing up all the work I put in to finally get a decent credit score. I'd also suggest locking cards that you don't forsee using.

[quanfu]

Have you had any luck with this as of yet?