How to recover from a single late payment?
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I used to have a very good credit score (above 800) until I slipped up and missed a payment on my credit card. My score immediately dropped by 62 points!
That credit card is now paid off, but I was wondering how to recover from this single late payment. I asked my bank not to report the late payment, but they insisted they must report it. I haven’t missed a payment in 12 years, and I fill it’s really unfair.
Your thoughts are appreciated.
Try a good will letter
It is typical for a credit score to go down 60 points or more for a single late payment. In fact, the higher your score is to begin with, the larger the drop (See late-payments.html).
Your bank is not telling the truth. While it’s true that lenders are well within their rights to report a late payment, they are not required to do so. You could try a good will letter. It may or may not work, but you being a paying customer for 12 years may certainly help. See goodwill-letters.html for details.
If the bank refuses to remove this single late payment from your report, only the passage of time can help. You will probably need at least 24 months of timely payments to get your score back to where it was. It does seam unfair, but this is how the system works.
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