Two Negative Student Loans

Anonymous · ‎09-27-2014

Two of my student loan accounts are showing negative on all three of my reports. Both of them are private student loans through Sallie Mae that I took out on May 6th 2008. They were on defferment until September 2012. Unfortunately then I wasn't aware that they were not on deferment anymore so both accounts went 4 months without any payment causing them to reflect as negative accounts (luckily I caught it before they went to collections). Well I have since consolidated all of my student loans and have been making monthly on time payments to Sallie Mae since June 2013 without one late or missed payment. Will the status change over time with enough on time payments? Or should I call Sallie Mae and make a request to change the status? Or am I doomed to have these accounts stay in the negative standing until they are paid off? Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this.

laz98 · ‎09-27-2014

@Anonymous wrote:
Two of my student loan accounts are showing negative on all three of my reports. Both of them are private student loans through Sallie Mae that I took out on May 6th 2008. They were on defferment until September 2012. Unfortunately then I wasn't aware that they were not on deferment anymore so both accounts went 4 months without any payment causing them to reflect as negative accounts (luckily I caught it before they went to collections). Well I have since consolidated all of my student loans and have been making monthly on time payments to Sallie Mae since June 2013 without one late or missed payment. Will the status change over time with enough on time payments? Or should I call Sallie Mae and make a request to change the status? Or am I doomed to have these accounts stay in the negative standing until they are paid off? Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this.

Those are pretty recent late payments. Generally the account is flagged as negative as soon as you get a late payment, so I imagine that it will stay that way until the late payments come off. I would try writing a goodwill letter asking them to kindly remove the late payments.

SCF · ‎09-27-2014

Individual late payments like that will remain on your report for 7-7.5 years, and the impact on your score will fade over time. If you want to try to have some or all of the late remarks removed early, you could write goodwill letters to Sallie Mae. There are lots of templates on these forums to use, and continuing your good payment history in the meantime will not only strengthen your case, but be the best way to build your score.

Anonymous · ‎09-28-2014

Thank you SCF and Iaz98 for the wonderful advice. I will definitly continue with the on time payments and will send a goodwill letter to Sallie Mae after another year of paying responsibly. I'm a new comer in the world of credit and I always forget time is everything. Thank you for making me aware of the templates because I wouldn't have known where to start.