What does it take to hurt your credit rating?
I have a checking account and credit card that are linked (same bank). I usually transfer payments, by phone, from my checking account to my credit card account a day or two before the payment due date. I have never missed a payment. It usually takes a couple of days for my payment to post and show up on my on-line statement. The money, on the other hand, is instantaneously zapped from my checking account.
I’ve never had a problem with this until today. I wanted to check a charge on my account so I checked on-line. In doing so, I noticed a late fee charge of $39.00.
The payment due date for my credit card was 5/6. I made a payment on 5/5. I know the money was out of my account by 5/6 because I called to check my balance.
I called my credit card customer service number. I spoke to someone who said he would remove the late fee as a “courtesy.” He then transferred me to his supervisor because I wanted to know whether my APR would affected, whether my credit rating would be damaged and why had this happened when I’ve never had a problem before.
The waste of dna I spoke to didn’t answer any my questions, at least not to my satisfaction.
So does anyone know if this will reflect badly on my credit?
It is not supposed to hurt your *rating *until it is “30 days past due”.
However, there are some CC that will raise your rate immediately even if your payment is an hour late. I would continue going up the “I want to speak to your supervisor” chain until you get an answer. Gping down to your branch and raising cain, and also writing a letter to the CEO are all things you might do. You also have to get them to agree that they are not removing the fee “as a courtesy” but because your payment was timely. This is more important than you think as many CC have a “one late fee removed as a courtesy every two years” policy, and that may well have been your only “courtesy” removal. OTOH, note that it is possible that your CC payment is due by 6:AM on the due date and your payment was not taken out of your account until 10AM or something like that.
The old “payment posted late” is a well known scam. Some CC have been found deliberately holding payments for a day to make them late.
I suggest, however, you start doing your payments a day or two earlier. No reason to mess around with a day. The amount of interest you could lose would be less than one late fee in ten years.
I will be doing that from now on. Thanks for your help!
It won’t hurt your credit score. As noted above, credit reports don’t have an entry for anything that is less than 30 days late. You can pay all bills late every month and still have a great credit score as long as they fall below that 30 day late period. However, it can effect your credit card rate or whatever other punishments the company has in their terms.