Can Credit Repair Companies Remove Late Payments?

Can a Credit Repair Company Remove Late Payments?

Credit repair companies cannot have accurately reported late payments deleted from your credit reports. If a late payment was reported correctly to one of the three main credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion or Equifax), that late payment will not be removed.

Despite what they may claim, credit repair companies don't have special privileges, backdoor access to the credit bureaus or any special ability to remove late payments. If you hire one, which can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, be aware that they can't do anything you can't do yourself for free.

Generally, the only reasons a credit bureau or a data furnisher (such as a bank or lender) will remove a late payment from your credit report are that the information is inaccurate or it has exceeded its credit reporting time limit.

Should I Hire a Credit Repair Company to Remove Late Payments?

Before paying a credit repair company to try to remove your late payments, ask yourself a few questions:

• Are the late payments accurate? If the payments were truly late, no one can have them removed early.
• Has it been seven years since the date of the late payment? Once that time passes, late payments come off automatically.
• Does the lender have a record of these late payments? If so, the credit bureaus will likely verify the information during a dispute.

Some credit repair companies promise to wipe legitimate late payments from your credit reports. But federal law doesn't allow this, and no company has the power to delete accurate negative information.

Learn more: How Does Credit Repair Work?

How Long Do Late Payments Stay on Your Credit Report?

Late payments stay on your credit reports for up to seven years from the date of the delinquency, according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Here's how the timeline works in different scenarios:

• The account stays open and is brought current: Only the late payment itself is removed after seven years. The account remains on your credit report as long as it's open.
• The account is charged off and sold to collections: All the late payments, the charge-off and the collection are deleted seven years from the date of the first late payment.
• The account is paid off and closed: The late payment is removed seven years after it was first reported, but the account itself can remain for up to 10 years from the closed date.

Open accounts in good standing with no late payments may stay on your credit report indefinitely. Experian keeps accounts closed in good standing on file for up to 10 years after the account was closed. That means a clean payment history can benefit your credit report for an extra three years compared to accounts with late payments.

How to Dispute Inaccurate Late Payments Yourself

The FCRA gives you the right to dispute information on your credit reports that you believe is inaccurate. Unlike hiring a credit repair company, disputing information on your own is free. Here's how to do it:

1. Check your credit reports. Review your reports from all three credit bureaus so you can see the full picture. You can get your Experian credit report for free anytime, and you can get free weekly credit reports from all three credit bureaus through AnnualCreditReport.com.
2. Gather supporting documents. Collect anything that helps prove the late payment is inaccurate, such as bank statements, canceled checks or payment confirmations.
3. Contact the data furnisher. You can dispute the information directly with the lender or company that reported it. They may correct the error and update each bureau they report to.
4. File a dispute with the credit bureau. You can file a dispute online, by mail or by phone. To dispute information on your Experian credit report, visit the Experian Dispute Center.
5. Wait for the investigation. The credit bureau generally has 30 days to investigate your dispute and report back. If the late payment is found to be inaccurate, it will be corrected or removed.

Disputes are free and don't affect your credit scores. If a dispute results in inaccurate information being corrected or removed, your scores may go up as a result.

Learn more: How to Dispute Credit Report Information

Frequently Asked Questions

Monitor Your Credit for Free

You don't need to pay a credit repair company to keep tabs on your credit. With free credit monitoring from Experian, you can check your Experian credit report and FICO^® Score anytime, and you'll get alerts when there's a change to your report. That way, you can spot inaccurate information and dispute it quickly and at no cost.