3 Ways to Get a Late Payment Removed From Your Credit Report
Thursday, September 11th, 2008Well, I messed up last month and accidentally forgot to pay one of my credit cards. It was reported on my credit and I saw a 30 point drop! Yes, late payments can be a very big deal, and they weigh significantly in your overall credit score calculation.
Although this has happened to me before, it was several years ago (before I really paid much attention to my credit score, or even knew I could get it removed). I am sure many of my readers have made the same mistake, so I’d like to show you 3 ways to get a late payment removed from your credit report. Just in case you’re wondering, I was able to get this late payment entry removed from my credit report by mailing the original creditor this goodwill letter.
In my experience, as long as you don’t have several late payments on the same account, it’s really not that difficult to get them removed. Here are three methods you can use to get them removed.
1. Request a Goodwill Adjustment from the original creditor to remove the late payment
The idea is simple and it works incredible well. Many times creditors are happy to grant “goodwill adjustments” if your previous payment history is relatively good and you have established a good relationship with the creditor. This is probably the easiest and surest way to get a late payment removed from your credit report. I wrote a whole article describing how to remove a late payment by asking. You can also use this free sample goodwill letter I created
2. Negotiate removal by offering to sign up for automatic payments.
I have never actually tried this method myself, but from what I understand creditors frequently offer to remove late payment entries if you, in exchange, agree to sign up for automatic payments. I really like this idea because it works out well for both parties: the creditor can ensure future payments will be made on time, and you don’t have to ever worry about missing another payment. I would love to hear from those of you who have succeeded with this method!
3. Dispute the late payment as inaccurate
While I certainly do not advocate fraud (that is, claiming an entry is inaccurate when you know it’s not), if you find ANY inaccuracies on the late payment entry (dates, amounts, etc), you can dispute the late payment as inaccurate.
Sometimes creditors have a difficult time verifying the exact details of your account history. Therefore, if you dispute the late payment and they are unable (or simply don’t bother) to verify it, the negative entry will be removed.
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