# Made payment to wrong credit card, can I prevent a late payment on my credit report?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-payment-to-wrong-credit-card-can-i-prevent-a-late-payment-on-my-credit-report/817432>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 6, 2018, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-payment-to-wrong-credit-card-can-i-prevent-a-late-payment-on-my-credit-report/817432 "2018-07-06T21:18:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-payment-to-wrong-credit-card-can-i-prevent-a-late-payment-on-my-credit-report/817432/1 "2018-07-06T21:18:39Z")

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Card A’s payment is due on the 7th. Card B’s payment is due on the 24th.

I made a payment on Card A on the 7th of the last month, then I messed up and made another payment on Card A on the 24th rather than Card B, so Card B charged me a late payment fee and interest. I found this out today when I was going to make the regular payment on Card A and saw nothing was due.

So yes, it’s my screw-up so I don’t have a problem with paying the fee and interest. I made a payment on Card B today. They applied it to the next payment due, the 24th of this month. Is this going to prevent a late credit report to the credit agencies since I made a payment within 30 days of when the last one was due, or am I still considered delinquent for last month?

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**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-payment-to-wrong-credit-card-can-i-prevent-a-late-payment-on-my-credit-report/817432/2 "2018-07-06T21:22:11Z")

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only if its beyond 30 days late - so long as you make the 24th on time, you should be fine.

If this is the only time this has happened in recent history - you should be able to work it out with the CC company and get the fee returned as well - just call them - they aren’t (always) as evil as we think they are.

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**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-payment-to-wrong-credit-card-can-i-prevent-a-late-payment-on-my-credit-report/817432/3 "2018-07-06T22:21:02Z")

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Your credit report will be fine.

As for the fee, call them. If you never have done so before, they will almost certainly waive it.

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**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-payment-to-wrong-credit-card-can-i-prevent-a-late-payment-on-my-credit-report/817432/4 "2018-07-06T22:30:22Z")

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For the future you should set up an automatic payment of at least the minimum amount.