Why is missing a $2 payment the same hit as missing a $20,000 payment?

[Anonymous]

That's definitely a fluke and some of your own creation. First you should have trusted the autopay, you have grace period until the 15th anyway. 2nd, instead of making a payment, you should have followed up with both banks about autopay status, one or both of them would have told you not to worry about it. 3rd, I would have left it at principal payment after making the extra payment and certainly wouldn't have trusted a CRS verbally and follow up prior to the next billing cycle. I'm sorry that it happened to you but I kinda feel like the wrong lesson was learned there. 

[Anonymous]

All hindsight.

That was my first-ever experience with autopay, years ago before I ever knew anything about credit or anything you just said.

[Anonymous]

Agreed, just thought it was unfair to blame autopay.

I really think we need to be extra careful when posting "autopay horrid stories", I see many on the board with strong opinions against autopay based on "stories" they heard somewhere, many new comers takes this to heart. In reality, autopay related problems are rare and far in between, instead we get threads like OP multiple times a day where autopay would have saved the day, I try to promote using autopay at least as a safety net as often as I can but it feels like an uphill battle sometimes against micromanagers and payment pushers, and stories like this continues.

[Anonymous]

While autopay can't directly be "blamed" in my situation, I think it's fair for me to point out the issue just to raise awareness for others.  I mean, I go years of not using autopay with no issues, then the first month I used it I had a problem that resulted in a late payment.  Had I never used autopay on the account, I definitely would have never been late.  Was some of it my "fault?"  I suppose so, but ultimately for me it created a problem.  I've never used autopay for my mortgage since that issue and it's been years.  I don't ever advise anyone to not use autopay, I just give my personal experience example here to help educate others as to the possible issues they could encounter, hopefully helping them avoid the same thing I went through.