URGENT QUESTION RE: PAYMENT HISTORY RATIO

[Anonymous]

i have 3 late payments on only one card, out of 18 accounts. CK presents my payment history as 216/219. Does the 219 refer to all payments on this particular account only? I have had it for 15 years but in the boxes it only states the payment history for the past 3. The rest present as unknown.

[Anonymous]

I believe CK uses all payments from all current accounts.  The same way they don't factor closed accounts into AAoA I don't believe they factor payments on closed acounts into their "payment history" equation.

Regardless, "payment history" presented by CK is absolutely, 100% meaningless to FICO scores so make sure you aren't looking at that payment history % and thinking it matters.  While you may be late on 3 payments, their severity and age are the two factors that matter with respect to your FICO scores... not that you've been late 3 out of 219 times.

[Anonymous]

I am!! Oh no. It lists my payment history as terrible on an account I have had for 10 years. No lates ever on any other account. The 3 lates were 1 in 2015 and 2 in 2014 on my Amex chArge- so they were huge payments, not like minimum payments. How do you think that affects fico? Also, I think it is unfair to consider a couple days late on a pay in full bill as severe as a small minimum on a revolver. Is that a silly thought process? I really appreciate your response. Thank you in advance.

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I am!! Oh no. It lists my payment history as terrible on an account I have had for 10 years. No lates ever on any other account. The 3 lates were 1 in 2015 and 2 in 2014 on my Amex chArge- so they were huge payments, not like minimum payments. How do you think that affects fico? Also, I think it is unfair to consider a couple days late on a pay in full bill as severe as a small minimum on a revolver. Is that a silly thought process? I really appreciate your response. Thank you in advance.

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The amount can't be distinguished and a late is a late is a late.  Also to be fair, it's not a few days late, it's 31+ days late by definition or more to make it onto the credit report at all... anything less than that doesn't show up (other than a fee assessed by the lender typically).  

I have a stupid 30 day late for a trivial amount from back in October: soon as I found out I had a balance still I paid it but /shrug, still my own fault.  Not much I can do except try to GW it off eventually though in my case it affects my credit near zero since it only got placed on TU which nobody ever pulls for me other than lenders that only pull TU which I can easily avoid if I so choose.

[RonM21]

Good point. More than 30 days is an extended period of time. If it were only a day or so after the actual due date, I could understand that bothering someone a bit.

[Anonymous]

I too wish there were some sort of weighting factor to help decipher severity of late payment impact.  I understand that the current system sees it as a late is a late is a late, but if you think about it, that's kind of silly.  For example, the $2.93 on an account that I thought I paid off carries the same weight as someone that's late on their $2000 mortgage payment.  Sure, they are both late... but one obviously suggests the inability to meet financial obligations where the other suggests a minor error which IMO shouldn't adversely impact creditworthiness as much.  I know this topic can be debated for hours and hours, but that's how I feel about it.

I think personally it would make sense if it was weighted based on the percentage of the payment that was late.  For example, if it's a $2000 mortgage payment that was indeed missed and 30+ days late, it was $2000 short which is 100% and should carry maximum impact.  If someone however has a $50/mo minimum payment on a CC and accidentally pays $48 for example, shorting it $2, that's 4% of the payment missed so IMO it should be assessed with lesser negative impact (in this case it suggests user error, not lack of creditworthiness).  Similarly, going back to the $2000 mortgage payment.  Say someone DOES incur financial hardship and can only afford $1000 of the $2000 payment.  Technically they are still 30 days late (say they pay 40 days after it's due) but they still paid 50% of the payment as opposed to the guy that paid nothing; by definition almost this person is displaying 50% greater creditworthiness with respect to this single account, so it would make sense to me that they should be penalized score-wise to a lesser degree than the guy that couldn't make any of the payment.  With the current system, both guys are impacted identically.