What's A Goodwill Letter?
Depending on the lender, some of the best ways to approach late payment removal is through Goodwill letters. Asking lenders for a goodwill adjustment is most effective when you have a solid relationship with them, specifically good payment history before and after the late payment event. Here are four main reasons that a goodwill letter may work:
- The borrower has endured a hardship that obstructed their ability to complete an on-time payment. This would include severe illness or a natural disaster.
- Documentation that you were in fact not late on your payments.
- The borrower proposes monetary compensation for the deletion of the late payment.
- The borrower has otherwise perfect payment history and extensive prior history with the lender.
To begin the process, simply compose a letter to your creditor outlining your late payment situation. Request their forgiveness and provide reassurance that the late payment will not happen again. If successful, your creditor will update your credit report to no longer report the late payment on the specific account.
Although goodwill letters are not always accepted on late payments, it doesn't hurt to ask. Make sure you have written confirmation of the agreement from your creditors if they accept the provisions of your goodwill letter. Doing this will keep them accountable should the late payment ever show up again.
If you are dealing with a creditor that is much stricter with late payments, do not worry, you have options! A credit repair specialist like The Credit Lion can help you dispute their late payments from your credit report.
Removing Inaccurate Late Payments?
Your credit report may occasionally contain inaccuracies. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) gives you the right to ask the credit bureaus to validate any incorrectly reported late payments and to have them removed if they are. There are several methods to dispute inaccurate information:
- Inaccurate dates reflect on your credit accounts.
- Incorrectly reported balances on your credit accounts.
- The appearance of unrecognized accounts.
- Reporting late payments when payments are actually on time.
- Accounts that are continually reported past their "fall-off" date.
- Accounts that are reporting two or more times (duplicate accounts).
If you discover any mistakes on your credit report, you can file a dispute with the credit bureau that generated the specific report (Experian, Equifax, or TransUnion). Additionally, you can challenge the error with the creditor.
Sending a dispute letter to each credit bureau that reported the inaccuracy will help you get this process started. You can request for the item to be rectified or removed. This should be stated in the dispute letter in clear terms, together with any supporting documentation regarding inaccurate, obsolete, or erroneous information.
The creditor or credit bureau has 30 to 45 days to look at your case after receiving your letter of dispute. After the creditor or credit bureau has done their inquiry, you should be informed of the findings.
The information will remain on your credit report if the creditor or credit bureau can demonstrate that it is accurate. But if they concur that the data is inaccurate, they are legally obligated to remove it from your credit report.
The Credit Lion disputes information that is inaccurate, incomplete, outdated or unverifiable. Accurate, timely information can't legally be removed, and results vary by file.
