Late payments are not created equal; a 30 or 60 day late pay will not damage your score much, and can often be removed. However a 90 day or 120 day late pay will cause significant damage to your score.

You can remove a 30 and 60 day late pay from your report by contacting the lender and asking them to erase it. Frequently they will do this in order to keep you as a customer and in their good graces.

We suggest making a phone call and writing a follow up letter. In your letter you should supply a brief explanation and be polite and respectful, after all they do not have to remove the mark.

A 90 or 120 day mark is much harder to erase. If you account is still open, we suggest you contact the lender.

Make sure your account is up to date before you ask them to remove the mark. Lenders will often make this decision based upon your payment history.

If the lender is not willing to remove the mark we suggest that you dispute it with the bureaus. You can do this be writing a dispute letter and sending it to each bureau or you can hire a credit repair service to do this for you.

This item will be on your report for a maximum of seven years. Additionally your account will be charged off after 180 days of delinquency.

The lender can remove a late pay from your report because they report regularly to the bureaus. All they have to do is not report the late payment the next time they report to the bureaus, typically monthly.

Your only way of getting help from the creditor is if you account is currently in good standing. Additionally there is information about negative marks and that they will stay on your report for 7 years.

This is false, seven years is the maximum amount of time most negative items can remain on your report. The Fair Credit Reporting Act passed by Congress made this law. There is no minimum amount of time a negative item has to be on your report.

In sum the first step is contacting the lender, if you still have the account, and then if that is unsuccessful dispute it directly with the bureaus.

For a Free credit consultation call 1-866-246-7311 or for a free online credit repair e-book visit us.

Additionally you can get free credit repair letters to dispute the bureaus.