Late payments are not created equal; a 90 day and 120 day late pay will cause your score to be dramatically lowered. However with a 30 day or 60 day late pay it will cause very minimal damage to your score.
You can remove a 30 or 60 day late pay by contacting the lender directly and asking them to erase it. Often they will do this as a gesture of good will and to keep your business.
We suggest making a phone call and writing a follow up letter. In your letter you should supply a brief explanation and be polite and respectful, after all they do not have to remove the mark.
A 90 and 120 day late pay is much more difficult to remove. However if your account is still open then you should contact the lender, and ask for removal of the mark.
It is a good idea to make sure your account is up to date before making this request. Typically if the lender sees a history of late payments they will not remove it.
If the lender will not remove this item then we suggest you dispute it directly with the bureaus. This is done through a dispute letter; you can create it or hire a service to do it on your behalf.
The negative item will be on your report for a maximum of seven years. Your account will go to a collection agency after 180 days of delinquency.
A lender can remove this mark because they report monthly to the bureaus and can choose what to report to them. Thus if they do not report your late payment the next month then it will not be on your credit history.
If your account is not in good standing, it will be very difficult to convince the lender to remove the mark from your report. Also there is a lot of information that says a negative item must stay on your report for seven years.
This is not true; a negative item can be removed at any time. Seven years is the maximum amount of time it can stay on your report. The Fair Credit Reporting Act says this and many collection agencies have lost law suits because they did not abide to the seven year maximum.
In sum the first step is contacting the lender, if you still have the account, and then if that is unsuccessful dispute it directly with the bureaus.
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