Just wanted to share my successes and denials on some goodwill letters I sent out. I thought it would take forever before I heard anything or saw any change but all 4 of these cards gave me an answer in under 2 weeks:
DENIED
Chase - Sent a letter thru email from my online account asking if they would kindly remove 2 30-day lates from 2006 and 2005. They got back to me within just a few days and said they were unable to remove them if I had more than one late payment and they were reporting accurately. This one is affecting my score the least so I'm not going to worry about it too much. They are 4 and 5 years ago.
JCPenney - Sent a letter thru email (the account was closed in 2008 but I was still able to log into my account) asking if they would remove several lates in 2008 and 2007. They got back to me with a letter about 2 weeks later and said they are reporting accurately and are not able to remove them. This account has one 90 and 60 day late and about 3 30 day lates. If I could get these ones removed, it would really up my score.
ACCEPTED
Chevron - Sent an email thru my online account asking to remove one 30-day late back in 2008. They got back to me within 2 days saying they were looking into it and I got a letter last week saying they removed this item and sorry for any inconvenience. Now this account is in positive status on my credit reports.
Target - Sent a goodwill letter asking to remove one 30 and 60 day late from back in 2007 (this account was closed in 2008). I never heard anything back from them but when I've checked my credit reports recently, this account is in positive status showing no lates.
I checked my EQ fico score about 2.5 weeks ago and it was 670, as of today, it's 729. TU is 738. JCPenney is the only account that's haunting me. I've read in some forums that they are forgiving but they were not with me. Didn't even remove one negative item. I am going to try again with a letter instead of an email and re-word it a little bit different and see what happens. I would be ecstatic if I could get this one removed.
So the the moral of the story is goodwill letters do work! And I recommend trying to email your first one thru your online account if you're looking for fast results. On the 3 that I did, I got replies and results in about a week. I would have done this with Target but was not able to log into my account anymore. But even though I didn't, it looks like the lates are now gone! Also, this is the first time I've ever done this. I didn't even know it was possible up until about 3 weeks ago thru these forums. I always thought 7 years on your credit, no exceptions.
Good luck to all of you. You won't know if it works until you try it.
