Are there creditors that are known to consider late payments separately?

[JonahK]

Since it is possible for someone to have a late payment at some point in the last 7 years and have a FICO 8 score in the 700s or even (with difficulty) above 800, are there any creditors who are known to turn down applications with good or better credit scores merely because of the presence of late payments? 

[FireMedic1]

Welcome @JonahK 

If its one thats older like a 30 day 5 yrs ago is one thing. Multiple over a period of time. Not good. 60 and 90 day lates. Even worse. Each creditor has their own algorithm programmed in the computer. So do you have any lates and what are you interested in? That will help more.

[GZG]

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@JonahK wrote:

Since it is possible for someone to have a late payment at some point in the last 7 years and have a FICO 8 score in the 700s or even (with difficulty) above 800, are there any creditors who are known to turn down applications with good or better credit scores merely because of the presence of late payments? 

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credit scores are completely meaningless without the context of the report 

no creditor has said 'oh boy [insert high number here] credit score' we must approve them regardless of what the report says

they say 'the credit history and report looks good to our standards, the credit score corroborates that based on our risk tolerance, let's issue an approval' 

the circumstances of the report and the creditors willingness to overlook late payments is entirely circumstantial with a sliding scale for leniency based on a whole bunch of factors 

really old late payments are more likely overlooked, particularly if you've been without late payments for several years 

really new late payments are much more likely to not be overlooked, even if you have a long past history of not being late

[Anonymalous]

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@GZG wrote:

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credit scores are completely meaningless without the context of the report 

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A thousand times this. Not to mention, you'll never know the true reason why you were denied a credit product. The list of reasons lenders provide are clearly ex post facto justifications, and may or may not be related to the real reasons why you were rejected. And given how machine learning works, the actual reason for a rejection may be impossible to concisely summarize.

And I concur that both the severity and age of lates matter a lot -- 60 or 90 day lates are a lot worse than 30 day lates, and fresh ones are a lot worse than ones that are about to fall off.

[DXness]

Only one DP,  but I've had 4 new card approvals and 2 huge CLI approvals this year with no denials despite 8 120 day lates showing.  They are all 3-6 years old and all on student loans, but still...that's a lot of very severe lates and they are mostly just being overlooked.  I'm stuck below 740 FICO and I'm not getting great SLs or APRs, so they definitely matter to some extent, but in terms of only impact on approvals?  Fire away!  Cap One, Amex, and Chase have shown me the whole core lineup in their pre-quals, including the Venture (signal for the VX) and Sapphire Reserve.  US Bank and Citi also don't seem to care - despite having recent inquiries.

YMMV, but the profile I have now with all these heavy lates actually seems significantly stronger than my original profile when it was perfectly clean.  Issuers didn't show me this kind of love back then, certainly no 2x and 3x CLIs.   In a world where no one would willingly take a dirty profile, I'd rather take dirty + aged over clean + young.  Although there is a big caveat with that, I have some kinda unknown mojo that issuers love.  No idea what it is - I don't carry balances/pay interest, don't put consistent, heavy spend on any one card, don't have high income, don't have low DTI, don't space my apps out 6 months...who knows.

Now it would be very different if you have recent lates - issuers really hate those.  I plan on avoiding new lates at all costs.