Ugh, after 4 years of perfect credit, it seems my streak may have come to an end. I received a notice from one of my credit cards that I missed a payment (which I have never done before, not to mention I always pay them off in full).
In short, I haven’t used the card in question for months, but I didn’t want to close it to prevent damaging my FICO score. Unfortuantely, it would appear some damn auto-renewing service, which I long have since stopped using, charged my card automatically. GRR. Anyway, I never received a statement from my credit card company regarding this, and thus was not aware of the charge.
I called the company and paid the charge, and thankfully wasn’t hit with a late fee. The CSR I spoke with also claimed that my credit would not be affected “to her knowledge.” Is that right?
So what do you guys think. Is my credit damaged? And if so, is there anything I can do about it.
As far as I know, you have to pay 30 or more days late in order to get your credit dinged. So you’re probably ok. But you can also lobby the credit card issuer to remove the derogatory info from your credit report.
Affected your payment?
Was that a typo, or are you actually asking us to calculate your penalties and interest for a late pay?
Assuming you meant to say “credit” the answer, which can never be precise, is that it would hurt notably but only slightly if you had mediocre credit and notably but not catastrophically if you had very good credit.
Not a big deal, but it’s best to avoid having it happen.
Also, late pays are more “temporal” than more serious issues. That is, a bankruptcy hurts for a full 7 years; a single late pay may not matter very much after 18 months.
The FICO and other scoring models are very complex, so it’s impossible to predict precisely; all such predictions are approximate.
Don’t do this. Just close the damn thing. There can be a mild short term hit on your FICO score for this, but otherwise it is fine and the hit is no big deal unless you are talking new home or Re-fi,where a 1/4% can be costly. Mostly closing one card does not seem to have a bad effect. It could even have a good effect.
I’d keep it open, as some part of your credit score depends on how long you have had credit. I would use it once or twice a month for Chipotle or Schlotzsky’s or something, to keep steady payments.
Have you asked them why your bill didn’t show? Have they your current address?
The Op seems to have several cards, thus canceling one should have no effect on how long he has credit, unless by pure chance he has had credit only for a few years and he is canceling his oldest card with no other loans before that.
I worked for a mortgage company as a network tech for six years and I have learned a few things:
No matter how long your credit history is recorded, there is always one agency (usually Experian) that blanket pegs you as not having a long enough credit history no matter how long you have it. My credit goes back to 1987 and they still include the old “insufficent history of credit” in the report.
This goes for “too many open accounts” also. My wife had two cards and our mortgage and could never shake that stigma. I really do have too many open accounts so I take that one in stride.
Up to six concurrent dings from inquiries (inquiries do last six months) do not affect your score… well… my score anyway as far as my experience goes. I pulled my full trimerge credit every three months along with my various applications and refinances getting pulled during the 2000-2004 real estate boom. Old school mortgage originators swear that inquiries drive down the FICO score but in this day and age of lax credit, I have never seen it as a factor.
I am a high-middle 797 right now. I suffered a devastating credit default period in 1990 but have since regroomed my credit starting with a crappy Capital One secured card for 200 bucks in 1995. No one has ever turned me down except American Express who, legal or not, have a long memory of defaulters. They pointed that out that I was a deadbeat with them in rejecting me. My first-hand experience has given me a very lax attitude for abusing the system in the aspects of relentlessly shutting down accounts, opening new ones, and having too much open credit lines. No one ever complained or turned me down for anything (other than AmEx) in the last seven years and my credit report now runs six pages of history with a boatload of closed accounts and an even bigger boatload of open accounts.
The trick is to use them somewhat, IMHO. The companies do get paid per purchase so I have this feeling that people who pay off their balance don’t bug them so much.
And on the flip side, I was a few days days late on a payment twice in 2002 on one card, so they yanked my cash privileges, shorted my available limit, and raised my interest rate. Five years later I have never used that card again but still keep it open since it has no annual fee. They have since tripled my available limit but have never canceled me. USBank card.
This is a near-hijack, but it’s legal for AmEx to maintain internal lists of customers who’ve defaulted on AmEx obligations.
The 7 years rule applies to credit bureaus, not lenders. It doesn’t cover the courthouse, either, so if I want to look up your 20-year-old bankruptcy I still can, I just can’t get the information from the various credit reporting agencies.