So, you have a late payment on your credit report and you don’t want it there anymore. There are several things you can do in terms of disputing late payments that are affecting your credit score. These disputes can be separated into two categories: disputes with a creditor and a dispute with a credit reporting agency. Just a note, a late payment is any payment made at least 30 days after the due date.

Disputing Late Payments With a Creditor

There are several ways to dispute a late payment with a creditor. One is a goodwill letter, which involves you asking for it to be removed. Another approach is to negotiate. Creditors are more interested in money than anything else. If you have multiple late payments and you have the money to settle the account, ask for them to be remove in exchange for the money. If you did, in fact, make the payment on time, you can try providing a proof of payment. If you’re a victim of identity theft, providing a police report may be enough to settle the problem. Finally, if you paid online and you believe that something happened, dispute it.

Disputing Late Payments With a Credit Reporting Agency

There are a few ways to go about disputing a late payment with a credit reporting agency. One is the “never late dispute”, which involves you telling the CRA that the payment was never late and hope that when they try to verify it that they don’t get a response from the creditor. Another is to dispute a factual error, and that means any factual error. If you find any error involving a late payment, ask for the listing to be removed from your credit report.

You could also try to get a late payment isolated on your credit report, but this can only work under two circumstances. First, the creditor must use the FICO 8 version of credit scoring. Second, you can only have one late payment on your record because there’s a reason why you want to isolate a late payment: to make it look like an isolated incident, which means that it only happened once. If you isolate more than one late payment, they will affect your FICO 8 significantly. Plus, they’re all in one place where anyone can see them.

These are just a few things you can do on your own to help when disputing late payments that may be affecting your credit score. Remember, it doesn’t hurt to ask. For more information, please contact us at The Credit Care Company.