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Last year I lost my job and was unable to make payments for my credit cards. All of them were over 90 days late. I tried for a settlement and pay for delete but the companies did not agree. I have made payments and now all my cards are current except one. This one has a large due amount. After much nagging they have said that they will set me up for a payment plan, but on my CR it will show a 90 days late.
I have read through the forum in the past few weeks, and got an idea though I am still confused. Is there any way to remove late payment? I had a clean credit record before I lost my job. Except for the credit cards I have managed to pay everything else on time. Can I get back to track? Thanks for any help
Hi Cacy,
I think your creditor is not ready to remove the late payment from your credit report, because he thinks you may miss payments in future. That means he considers you as a bad risk. But one late payment can negatively affect your score for a long time. So I would suggest you to sign up for an automatic online payment, and then contact your creditor. If he sees that you have signed up for an automatic online payment, he will be assured of receiving timely payments in future, so he may agree to remove the late payment records. I am not sure whether this will work, but you can at least try doing it.
I have heard that a "Dispute Letter" to credit bureaus, sometimes works in these cases. You can just hope that the credit card (CC) company is not able to verify your late payment within 30 days, while the credit bureaus investigate. If you are lucky, the credit bureaus will remove the late payment records, just in case your CC company fails to prove it.
Remove late payments
Hi Cacy,
Rachael is right. If you are lucky, the tricks may work. Even if you are unable to remove the late payment, you should accept the payment plan which the credit card company has offered. You should come to a written agreement with the creditor that he will report to the bureaus, after the debt is paid off. You can request him to list the account as "Paid as Agreed", which is better than an outstanding debt being reported on your credit report.
The affect of the late payment remark on your credit report will decrease, if you are able to build a good credit record. To improve your credit history, you should make timely payments for all your current bills. If any of your relatives agrees to add you as an authorized user to one of their old credit accounts (that has a good repayment record), it can help to improve your credit score.