Removing Late Payments from a Credit Report
- By Stuart Hunter
- Published 11/24/2009
- Finance
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Rating:
Stuart Hunter
Providing credit repair services since 1991, Lexington Law has helped over 500,000 clients legally take on their credit. Last year alone, Lexington Law helped clients remove over 600,000 negative items from their credit reports.
View all articles by Stuart HunterRemoving Late Payments from a Credit Report
Depending on how late a creditor reports you were on a payment, even a single late payment on your credit reports can do some serious damage to your credit rating. One 90-day late payment reported to the credit bureaus can hurt your credit score as much as a collection account, judgment, or tax lien.
30 and 60 day late payments don't affect a credit score as much, but if you have multiple delinquencies on your credit reports, don't be surprised when your credit isn't as good as you would prefer it to be.
Whether a late payment is reported as 30, 60, 90, or 120 days late, your credit rating would likely be higher if it didn't appear on your credit reports at all. Almost everyone would want to have this derogatory listing erased, but few realize there is anything they can do about it. What they are not aware of is that there are steps you can take in an effort to delete late payments from your credit reports. In fact, Lexington Law, a consumer advocacy law firm with 18 years of experience helping over 1/2 million Americans work to improve their credit, reports that their clients had over 140,000 late payments removed from their credit reports in 2008.
You have a number of options when it comes to repairing your credit.
For starters, under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you can request the credit bureaus verify any items in your credit reports you feel may be inaccurate, untimely, misleading, incomplete, ambiguous, unverifiable, biased or unclear (known as "questionable" items). Essentially, you are able to to question any items in your credit reports that you feel give others an unfair or inaccurate impression of your credit worthiness; including late payments.
If your credit bureau dispute is unsuccessful or if the reported late payment does not qualify as a questionable negative item, there are still options available to you. Your creditors have the ability to remove the items they have added to your credit reports. Sometimes, simply as a result of you asking nicely, they will agree to stop reporting a negative item. If a friendly request fails to produce results, there are a number of more confrontational things you can do based on your rights under consumer protection statutes such as the Fair Credit Billing Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
It may not be easy, but with time, effort, and proper knowledge, you may be able to remove late payments from your credit reports. Of course, if you do not have the time or the desire to attempt repairing your own credit, there are a number of reputable credit repair companies who will use their knowledge and experience to assist you in working towards your credit goals.
30 and 60 day late payments don't affect a credit score as much, but if you have multiple delinquencies on your credit reports, don't be surprised when your credit isn't as good as you would prefer it to be.
Whether a late payment is reported as 30, 60, 90, or 120 days late, your credit rating would likely be higher if it didn't appear on your credit reports at all. Almost everyone would want to have this derogatory listing erased, but few realize there is anything they can do about it. What they are not aware of is that there are steps you can take in an effort to delete late payments from your credit reports. In fact, Lexington Law, a consumer advocacy law firm with 18 years of experience helping over 1/2 million Americans work to improve their credit, reports that their clients had over 140,000 late payments removed from their credit reports in 2008.
You have a number of options when it comes to repairing your credit.
If your credit bureau dispute is unsuccessful or if the reported late payment does not qualify as a questionable negative item, there are still options available to you. Your creditors have the ability to remove the items they have added to your credit reports. Sometimes, simply as a result of you asking nicely, they will agree to stop reporting a negative item. If a friendly request fails to produce results, there are a number of more confrontational things you can do based on your rights under consumer protection statutes such as the Fair Credit Billing Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
It may not be easy, but with time, effort, and proper knowledge, you may be able to remove late payments from your credit reports. Of course, if you do not have the time or the desire to attempt repairing your own credit, there are a number of reputable credit repair companies who will use their knowledge and experience to assist you in working towards your credit goals.