Did I make a mistake?

[Anonymous]

I wanted to introduce myself, I have been reading and learning alot from this forum for a while but this is my first post. I bought a house with my wife a year and a half ago and we had to go with an ARM because my wife's credit was bad. I am now 8 months from refinancing so I thought I would work on the credit reports and get the FICO scores up as high as possible. I just pulled 2, Experian-667 and Transunion- 709. I took the advice from some other posts and applied for some credit cards because I had none. I now have a AMEX blue, Amex Delta and a WAMU platinum and plan on keeping the utilization between 1-9%.

I have written a letter to my credit union who I have had since 1989,  in hopes to have one loan removed from my credit reports.  We had off and on 30 day lates for 3 years. I know it sounds bad but this was a while ago and when I got the car back(ex wouldnt make payments) I got caught up and paid loan off. This is the only baddie on my reports. I have a few current loans, past loans and have always made every payment on time. I have also paid my mortgage on time for 1 1/2 years now.

My question is this, did I make a mistake by asking my credit union to remove this loan completly? After doing some reading, it looks like having long credit history is more valuable than baddies but how will this affect my score if they remove it? I have credit from before this loan that is all positive so If this one dissappears will it boost my score or drop it? Sorry this got to be so long, thanks 

[Anonymous]

Yep- 30 day late over 2 years old have little effect.

30 day lates are not even "Major derogs"

Looks like you are doing everything else right and are on track for your refi.

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@Anonymous wrote:

I wanted to introduce myself, I have been reading and learning alot from this forum for a while but this is my first post. I bought a house with my wife a year and a half ago and we had to go with an ARM because my wife's credit was bad. I am now 8 months from refinancing so I thought I would work on the credit reports and get the FICO scores up as high as possible. I just pulled 2, Experian-667 and Transunion- 709. I took the advice from some other posts and applied for some credit cards because I had none. I now have a AMEX blue, Amex Delta and a WAMU platinum and plan on keeping the utilization between 1-9%.

I have written a letter to my credit union who I have had since 1989, in hopes to have one loan removed from my credit reports. We had off and on 30 day lates for 3 years. I know it sounds bad but this was a while ago and when I got the car back(ex wouldn't make payments) I got caught up and paid loan off. This is the only baddie on my reports. I have a few current loans, past loans and have always made every payment on time. I have also paid my mortgage on time for 1 1/2 years now.

My question is this, did I make a mistake by asking my credit union to remove this loan completely? After doing some reading, it looks like having long credit history is more valuable than baddies but how will this affect my score if they remove it? I have credit from before this loan that is all positive so If this one disappears will it boost my score or drop it? Sorry this got to be so long, thanks

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[Anonymous]

Timothy, the last 30 day late was Jan of 2005, after that I paid the remaining payments on time until it was paid off. I have never been late on my mortgage for 1 1/2 years now or my motorcycle loan. I just don't like when I look at my Experian report and see all those yellows between the greens(if you know what I mean). I would love for it to just look clean but I don't want it to make my score drop huge if they remove the loan all together. 

[haulingthescoreup]

Fingers crossed that they'll leave the TL on!

I know what you mean about the greens and yellows. I have one dismal store card account that I call my Christmas tree account--lots and lots of greens with some yellow ornaments sprinkled around. I'm trying to get those ornaments packed away, too (it's an open account, luckily.)