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How to Remove Late Payments from Credit Reports - Our Proven Strategy!

By: Daniel Rosen Last updated: December 29, 2023

None of us ever intend to make a late payment, but as the old saying goes…

Sh*t happens!

Things go wrong, mistakes are made, and real life gets in the way. Maybe you missed a step when setting up auto-pay, or you switched banks and forgot to set up the payment, or the invoice got sent to your spam folder.

Consumer finance expert Bruce Politano told me about how he missed a few payments when he was in a motorcycle accident and had to spend 11 days in hospital.

Whatever the reason, it’s happened to 64% of Americans according to a LendingTree Survey in 2022. That’s most of us!

Despite it being an accident or out of your control, missed payments unfortunately still impact credit scores a lot. This is because lenders see missed payments as a huge red flag. 

That’s why removing late payments from a credit report is such an important step in repairing credit and boosting a credit score.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the steps you need to remove late payments from a credit report, and how using credit repair software can make it much easier.

Do Late Payments Affect Credit Score? 

Lots of factors go into calculating someone's credit score, but payment history is the single largest factor, according to data analytics company FICO.

“How many points can a late payment affect my credit score?”

This is a question I’m asked all the time, and the answer is quite staggering. Late payments can affect scores by up to 192 points.

To put that in context, credit scores range between 300 and 850. So 192 could be the difference between “poor” credit and “very good” credit, or even “fair” and “exceptional” credit.

“How many points will my credit score increase when a late payment is removed”

This means that getting a late payment removed from your credit report could boost your credit score by up to 192 points. Obviously, this depends on how many late payments you have, and the weight of each missed payment, but it highlights why it’s so important to remove these from your credit report.

How Long Do Late Payments Stay on Credit Reports?

Before I answer the question how long does a missed payment stay on your credit report, it’s important to note that late payments aren’t reported on a credit report until they’re at least 30 days past due. 

But after these 30 days, they will fall into one of the following categories:

  • 30 days

  • 60 days

  • 90 days

  • 120 days

  • 150 days

After this, it’ll be given the “charged-off” status, which essentially means the creditor has written off the debt as a loss.

The later the payment is made, the more damage it’ll do to your credit score, and the longer it’ll take to leave your credit report. For an example of how long for late payments to fall off, it can take between nine months and three years for a score to fully recover from a 30-day late payment. Whereas a 90-day late payment can take between nine months and seven years.

This is because late payments that are 90 days late or longer are considered a ‘Key derogatory item’. These items are generally considered to be the most severe negative factors on your credit history and can make it difficult to obtain new credit or loans.

As well as impacting your ability to get new credit, this can also impact your existing credit. This is because most credit card companies run a soft search on existing cardholders to see if there were other accounts that experienced late payments.

If they see any late payments from other creditors, they’ll commonly lower your available credit line or even increase your interest rate. This can happen even if you’ve never had a late payment with that specific creditor.

(I know, it sucks!)

New call-to-actionCan You Remove Late Payments from Your Credit Reports?

I know that all sounds pretty bad so far, but I’ve also got some good news for you.

It’s not as hard to remove late payments from your credit report as you might think. In fact, all it takes is a little creativity and empathy, combined with a process called a ‘Goodwill deletion’.

A goodwill deletion is a polite request for the creditor to remove one or more late payments. You do this by explaining the valid and compelling reason for missing the payment, and by promising to make all future payments on time.

Does Closing an Account Remove Late Payments?

Removing payments is a great way to repair credit, but there are a couple stipulations. For a start, goodwill deletion will only work for accounts that are ‘Current', meaning there is no past due amount.

Also, if the account is closed, you should request the removal of the entire amount (not just the late payments), as the goodwill deletion is mostly based on your previous stellar payment history.

Goodwill Letter to Remove Late Payments

So, you’ve got an open and current account and a great payment history, but you’ve got one or two pesky late payments to take care of?

The goodwill deletion letter is here to save the day!

You’ll send your goodwill letter to the creditor, politely and persuasively asking them to remove the late payment. You do this by providing a very convincing reason why the payment was late, and will never happen again.

This process is much like a child trying to convince their parents to unground them. It’s all about sweet-talking them into understanding your side of the story. Pulling at their heartstrings so they develop sympathy for your situation.

Maybe your baby was born that month, you were hospitalized, or maybe like poor Bruce you were in a motorcycle accident. Whatever it is, it has to be good enough to convince them that it would have been extremely difficult to have made payment on time.

How to remove a 30-day late payment from credit report with a goodwill letter

Here’s a list of the information you’ll need to provide in your goodwill deletion letter:

  • Your/your client's information

  • The length of the relationship between the customer and the creditor

  • The request for a goodwill deletion for reporting to the Bureaus

  • The length of consistent, improved, on-time payment history

  • Specific, personal reasons for late payment and why the late payment was a one-off

  • A sincere request to remove the late payments in consideration of all of the above

To make this even easier for you, we’ve created this goodwill deletion letter template you can download for free. I also recommend using a credit repair tool like Credit Repair Cloud to make it easier to identify late payments, and find the details of your creditors.

Frequently Asked Questions About Removing Late Payments From Credit Report


How Do I Find Out Who Reported a Late Payment?

To find out who reported a late payment on your credit report, you need to obtain a copy of your credit report. Once you’ve done that, you can then contact the creditor to dispute the late payment if you believe it is inaccurate. Using a credit repair tool like Credit Repair Cloud makes it easy to review your credit report and send the dispute letter. 

Can a Creditor Remove a Late Payment?

Some creditors may be willing to remove a late payment as a courtesy, especially if it is a minor late payment and you have a long history of good payment behavior. You can always try to negotiate with the creditor to have the late payment removed, but there is no guarantee that they will agree.

Who Can Help Remove a Late Payment from a Credit Report?

You can remove a late payment from your credit report by contacting the creditor who reported the late payment and asking them to remove it. If the creditor is unwilling to remove the late payment, you can dispute it with the credit bureaus. If the creditor cannot verify the late payment, the credit bureau will remove it from your credit report. You should also consider using a credit repair tool like Credit Repair Cloud to help you with this process.

What you should do now?

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Topics: Podcast

Transcript

Daniel Rosen  0:00  

Hey Credit Heroes, there is a simple strategy that can remove late payments from your credit report and boost your credit score up to 192 points. And today I'm going to show you exactly how to do it. And I'm going to give you all the tools you need to get it done. So you better stick around. So the big question is this, how can we take our passion for helping people with their credit and turn it into a successful business without taking loans without spending a fortune by bootstrapping it from nothing? So we can help the most people and still become highly profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Daniel Rosen, and welcome to credit repair business secrets.

 

Daniel Rosen  0:47  

Okay, if this is your first time listening to my podcast, every week, I give credit repair tips and advice on bootstrapping your business from nothing. So be sure to click to subscribe now and get ready to start changing lives. Okay, let's get into this. Everyone knows what a late payment is. You have a bill and a due date. But for whatever reason, you don't make the payments on time. It's easy to understand because most of us have done it. A lending tree survey found that 64% of Americans had been late when paying a bill and the three most common late payments are utility bills, credit card bills, and cable or internet bills. Late payments are a fact of life because people miss making payments for many legitimate reasons. Some people miss payments because they're in the military, they were on deployment and they didn't receive the bill. Others missed payments because their medical provider sent them a confusing bill that they thought the insurance company had already paid. Sometimes people think they have auto-pay set up when they don't checks get lost in the mail. And sometimes people lose their jobs and simply can't pay their bills on time because they just don't have the money. One of our Millionaires Club members, Bruce, Paula Tano, told me that even he missed a few payments because he was in a motorcycle accident, and he spent 11 days in the hospital. My point happens, the only problem is payment history has a massive impact on your credit scores, and lenders consider late payments to be a big red flag that they hold against you. According to FICO payment history is the single largest factor that impacts a person's credit score, accounting for 35% of the total credit score. And because credit scores have a range between 308 and 50 That means that late payments can change your score up to 192 points. Those 192 points can make a huge difference that can take you from having poor credit to very good credit or from fair credit to exceptional credit. This means that if you master the process of removing late payments from credit reports, you've got the most impactful part of credit repair. Here's the thing to remember, late payments aren't reported on your credit report until they're at least 30 days past due. And after that, it'll get placed into one of these buckets, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120 days, 150 days past due, and eventually charged off status, meaning that the creditor has written the debt off as a loss. If you make a late payment, your creditor will report it to the bureau based on this schedule. And the later it is the more damage it's going to cost your credit score. For example, depending on how high your credit score was to start, it can take between nine months and three years for your score to fully recover from 130 days late payment for a 90-day late payment and it can take between nine months and seven years. This is because late payments that are 90 days or longer are considered a key derogatory item. So even if you're already late, you need to make your payments as soon as possible. So the problem doesn't get worse. On top of that most credit card companies pull your credit every so often as a soft inquiry to see if you relate to your other accounts or to see signs of financial difficulties with other creditors. If they see any late payments with other creditors, they may lower your available credit line or even increase your interest rate even if you've always made payments on time with that credit card. It's so terrible yet they're allowed to do this. In addition to how late the payment is the number of late payments and the balance owed also impact your credit scores. That's why you must educate your clients about avoiding late payments whenever possible. That way they're in a great position to dispute whether life eventually happens. Here's why this is important. Believe it or not all

 

Daniel Rosen  5:00  

All it takes to remove late payments is a little creativity and empathy and a process called goodwill. deletion of goodwill deletion is a request, it's not a demand. It's where you politely ask or beg the creditor to remove one or more late payments by explaining the very good reason why you miss the payment. And by promising to make payments on time in the future, Goodwill deletions only work on open accounts that are current, a creditor will only consider your goodwill deletion request. If the account is current, meaning there is no past due amount. Now if the account is closed, try removing the entire account and not just the late payments, because the goodwill deletion is based in part on the fact that you had a previous stellar payment history. Here's what you need to know if you have an open and current account and great payment history, but you suddenly have one or a handful of late payments. That's when it's time for a goodwill deletion. If you don't already have a goodwill deletion letter template, don't worry, you can download one right now for free at creditrepaircloud.com/dispute-letters/goodwill-deletion I'll also put a link to it in the show notes. Now goodwill deletion letter works by sending it to the creditor asking them very nicely to remove the late payment and providing them with a very good reason why the payment was late, and why it won't happen again. It has to be a great story, a tear-jerker, something that really moves them to explain that your child was born that month or you were hospitalized or there was a massive power outage, or your family was affected by COVID. Anything extremely difficult that came up that made payment impossible. Also remember, you're asking the creditor for a favor. So be very nice. If the main customer service address doesn't respond, send it to other departments or other individuals, Google their company, look up their managers, directors, or even the CEO, literally anyone, and send a separate letter directly to them. This is called the saturation technique. And it's a proven tactic that can help your clients so go the extra mile. Here's my final point, most of us have missed a payment or two. Usually, it's because some life event got in the way. But just because you were late doesn't mean that it should hurt your credit for years to come. So put in the effort, go the extra mile, use a bit of creativity and apply polite pressure, and more often than not, you'll get the results you need. And if you do this for a credit repair client, they're gonna love you for it. And just a reminder, this podcast is brought to you by credit hero score. Credit hero score is the only credit monitoring service that integrates directly with the credit repair cloud, get instant access to your credit reports and scores by signing up for a seven-day trial for only $1. Sign up right now at creditheroscore.com.

 

Daniel Rosen  8:12  

I'll end by saying if you don't already have a credit repair Cloud account, check it out. It's the software that most credit repair businesses in America run on. Just sign up for a 30-day free trial at creditrepaircloud.com/free trial. And if you'd like to change lives and grow your own credit repair business, check out our credit hero challenge. It's a live experience that it's helped tonnes of credit heroes to get certified in disputing and to gain confidence as they run their credit repair business on a solid foundation so they can change a whole lot of lives and make a great living in the process. We're starting the next challenge very soon. So you want to join before the door is closed. Are you gonna have a long wait until the next one? So sign up right now at creditherochallenge.com If you're finding value in the things that I share on this podcast, click below to subscribe and follow. Also, give me a five-star review or share the show and help me to change more lives. If you'd like to read the show notes they're posted on my blog. If you have a question or a comment, drop it down below because I read each and every one of them. I would love to hear from you and I'll respond as soon as I can. If you want to learn more top-secret credit repair disputing strategies, check out my interview with Bruce Positano. So take care of credit hero and keep changing lives. Hey, everybody, it's Daniel again. And really quick. I'd like to invite you to join what I believe is the best thing we have ever created inside the credit repair cloud community. And it is a challenge that we call the credit hero challenge. If you're just planning out your business or you're just getting started, and you dream of having a successful business of your own, so you can quit your nine-to-five and five

 

Daniel Rosen  10:00  

You're your boss, and have financial freedom so you can add another revenue stream to your existing business. If that's your dream, you need to get into this challenge. We created this challenge to help you to create and launch your very own credit repair business to build a proper foundation for a really successful business. This challenge is going to help you to understand the strategy, the tactics, and all the things you need to be successful at credit repair. It really is the greatest thing we have ever built, and it will change your life. So I recommend you do it right now. Stop everything pause this audio, go online, go to creditherochallenge.com That's creditherochallenge.com and join the next challenge. And there's a challenge that starts in just a few days. So go get started right now at creditherochallenge.com



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