Dumb mistake, my fault.....how can I correct it?

[Anonymous]

Hey folks.......100% my fault so I won't make excuses.

  BUT  -

I had  fantastic credit going on 15 years, usually high 700's and never lower than 720

I pay all my bills on the 5th of evry month, including mortgage [ it just happened to fall on that day when we closed]

And all the credit cards.....we have no car payments, just a few CC's, plus some medical bills and electric, cable, etc......always paid on time.  So I THOUGHT!

 Turns out one of the CC payments,  to Bank of America, was going in a few days late because they should have been paid on the 2nd. 

For the past 5 months [ugghh]

Complete mistake, and all other bills were always paid on time, but that one....for 6 months unfortunately [ and the payment was only around 70 bucks, something I could pay easily]....was paid a few days late each time since July.

  It has dropped my credit rating by 130 points.  

   Can anyone help?  Again, it was my total mistake, but doesn't anyone take 15 years of on-time payments and almost-perfect credit count for something?

  Thanks all, Jennifer 

[Thomas_Thumb]

Write and mail them a good will letter explaining what happened and why. 

Side note: Have you received ciopies of your credit reports? If so, what do they show for lates? If the bill was paid prior to being 30 days late, the late payment(s) should not show on your credit reports. Please tell us what this account shows.

[kxkxkxx]

Thanks for putting this out there....I am sure this has happened to other people.

A couple of questions:

When the first or second payment was late, did they not send you any correspondence to say that?

Was this your first time checking your credit in awhile?

I ask because this almost happened to me, but I got an alert the day after the payment was due saying it was late.....fortunately, it was well within the grace period, but still freaked me out.

[Anonymous]

Something doesn't add up here.

If you were paying "just a few days late" [past your due date] that wouldn't impact your credit.  All you'd be hit with are late fees or whatever your lender's policy is.  It isn't until you're 30 days late that it can be reported as such to the CRAs.  That being said, if your score dropped 130 points it means that late payments were reported, meaning that your lender reported you 30 days (or greater) late.  If you were only 3 days late, they can't report you 30 days late.

[marty56]

Were you using auto pay and or and just making minimum payments?  If you did that across multiple months it is possible to get a 30 day late because the amount you paid might have been less then what they wanted if say there was a late fee or a over the limit fee if you did this across 5 months.

[RonM21]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Something doesn't add up here.

If you were paying "just a few days late" [past your due date] that wouldn't impact your credit.  All you'd be hit with are late fees or whatever your lender's policy is.  It isn't until you're 30 days late that it can be reported as such to the CRAs.  That being said, if your score dropped 130 points it means that late payments were reported, meaning that your lender reported you 30 days (or greater) late.  If you were only 3 days late, they can't report you 30 days late.

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Welcome Jennifer!  BBS is right on it with this one in questioning the info you provided.  Jennifer, you mentioned this:

"Turns out one of the CC payments,  to Bank of America, was going in a few days late because they should have been paid on the 2nd. 

Complete mistake, and all other bills were always paid on time, but that one....for 6 months unfortunately [ and the payment was only around 70 bucks, something I could pay easily]....was paid a few days late each time since July."

Based on that info you provided, you should not have had 30-day lates reporting to the bureaus.  You must be literally up to day #30 before it can me tagged as 30-days late.  If it were only a few days after the due date each time, then the worst that should've happened are the late fees and maybe BoA noting this internally.  Either BoA incorrectly reported the 30-day lates when you were only a few days late OR you are mistaken that you were only a few days late. 

The only other scenario I can think of as to how this could have gotten messed up is that you somehow let a full month due date cycle pass after missing the due date initially, but for some reason you did not realize it.  Then, what you assumed was a few days late past what ever date the due date is, you actually may have been more like 32-35 days late.  Sounds crazy, but it is worth looking into whether you missed a full payment cycle by mistake, which then started this string of lates. 

[MakingProgress]

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@Anonymous wrote:

  It has dropped my credit rating by 130 points.  

   Can anyone help?  Again, it was my total mistake, but doesn't anyone take 15 years of on-time payments and almost-perfect credit count for something?

  Thanks all, Jennifer 

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I would think that with a 130 point drop there must be a lot more than a single 30 day late payment. 

[Anonymous]

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@MakingProgress wrote:

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I would think that with a 130 point drop there must be a lot more than a single 30 day late payment. 

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Not necessarily.  All negative items once first introduced carry a major sting.  A 30 day late wouldn't necessarily have much of a different impact inititally than a more severe negative item, as the time element (now) is what's significant here.  The difference is when the negative ages.  A 30-day a year or two from now certainly would pose less of an adverse scoring impact on one's file than a 90+ day for example.

[marty56]

IMHO I suspect it is the cumlative effect of not paying the required minimum payment plus any late fee where the OP still has an unpaid portion of the first late payment.  For example if you $30 and pay late, you may owe $35 the following month but if you only pay $30 you are short now and if you do the same next month month, you are $5 late for 30 days and then 60 days late and so on.  Late fees are also treated as balance when making payments,

[Anonymous]

That could be the case above, but wouldn't the late fee simply be added to the payment due the following month?  If so and the full payment (late fee included) is paid the following month, it wouldn't go 30 days late.