I just got my 3-bureau report, and back in 6/2002 I had a 30 day late notice. I remember this incident, it was like the 1 time in 29 years I forgot to pay a debt…but I corrected it post-haste, and realized it was a ding on my score.
However, we’re now 2.5 years later. The form I’m looking at shows the “2 year history” for each of my accounts, and on this account, 1 year and 11 months after the incident, I closed the account.
And now this 30 day late will NEVER go away! The report doesn’t show “2 years from today” on any of my closed accounts. It shows “2 years from the close date” on any closed accounts.
So what, time doesn’t progress once you close an account. I have 9 accounts full of “paid on time” or “Closed Paid in Full” and one stupid 300 dollar card that I kept for emergencies, a card I accidentally used one time, then neglected to pay, will ALWAYS be there?
When will it expire? Is there anything I can do, file some greivance or something saying “Hey, that’s old news…in the last 2 years I’ve been awesome, so quit dragging down my SCORE!”
or am I just screwed?
Thanks for your help.
Steve (who’d like to buy a house! 720 equifax is pretty good, right?)
Just because it’s on your credit report doesn’t mean it’s gonna have an impact on your credit score has calculated by the arcane FICO algorithms…
(And IIRC, 720 is considered good enough to get a standard mortgage, but right on the borderline of where some lenders start offering their best rates.)
That’s good to know…I guess I figured if it showed up on one, it affected the other…but I have no clue how the score is calculated, so maybe that’s where I should start researching.
Hmm, I wonder if there are any past threads on how to get your score up. Stupid “up” only having two letters.
Did you get your score from one of the on-line places? Usually (at least on the ones I’ve ordered that included a credit score) there’s also a tab or link that’ll list the top few factors responsible for lowering your score…
It says: Having low credit limits on your accounts and loans is lowering your score. Having a high amount of credit is a positive factor because it indicates to lenders that other creditors have trusted you by lending you money in the past. However, since your major credit card limits are generally low, lenders may think you don’t have enough experience with high limits. Keep on minimizing your outstanding debt and pay all your bills on-time, and some lenders may eventually raise your credit limits, which in turn may increase your score.
Umm, my only open debt right now is a car loan that was for 12,000 dollars. I can’t raise that. I have no credit-cards with any limits, so…what? Should I OPEN some? That seems…umm, counter productive.
Late payments on your credit accounts count negatively against your score, and your payment history shows one or more payments that were late by 30 days or more. Although negative information can stay on your credit report for 7 to 10 years, by paying overdue bills and making on time payments, lenders may recognize your efforts to better your score.
See! I knew that damn 30 day late was hurting me. If I’d kept that card open ONE MORE MONTH I’d have been fine…but NOOO I had to go and close it. Ehh, maybe it still woulda affected the score, even if it was older than 2 years, since they say they keep it for 7 to 10 years. Damn that’s cold.
sigh I hate the world we live in. It’s too stupid and automated and brainless and confusing…and I’ll save the rest of this for another forum.
Thank you for the pointer to check for that, Metacom
I specifically asked my bank to lower the limit on my credit card. At one stage it was up to 6500 pounds. I was looking to get a home loan and my sister said that that high credit limit could limit the amount of money I could borrow as the bank counts it as a debt (ie they don’t know that you wouldn’t go out and blow that money on new furniture for your house) which makes sense to me.
You could try to dispute the late payment with the credit bureau. If the creditor doesn’t respond, the bureau has to remove the entry. Since it’s a paid off closed account, they may not bother to respond. If they do, it stays on, and you’re not any worse off than you were to start with. It will eventually come off seven years after the date it went late (4.5 years from now).
How soon do you plan on buying a house? There are other things you could try to increase your score, but they’ll probably cause it to dip before it rises. With your score as good as it is now, if you plan on buying soon, I wouldn’t suggest risking lowering it to make it better.
If you’re not buying for a couple years, it sounds like the one thing you need is a credit card with a decent limit. Get a MasterCard or Visa with a $5000 or so limit, use it a few times here and there so it shows some history, but not too much, and you’ll score will probably go up, but it will go down initially because of it being a new account and will slowly go back up as the history builds.
Generally, from what I’ve heard, it’s good to keep your amount of open credit as high as possible (within reason), but keep your balances to under 30% of your total credit. Closing cards in general is not a very good idea, but if it’s a low limit card, it’s not that big a deal. There are more factors at work, but having one credit card with a limit of $5000 near its limit is worse than having several credit cards with a total line of credit at, say, $20,000 and $5000 total debt outstanding.
A little tick for a 30-day non-payment is not going to make a huge difference in your FICO score. I have a 120-day non-payment on my record from two years ago and my credit score is in your general area.
I’m not saying go out and get a dozen cards. Just have three or four cards with decent credit limits and keep your charges at 30% or less of your total credit. Even if you pay religiously, if your charges are at a high %age of your total available credit, it will adversely affect your credit score.