Does a late payment affect your credit rating?

loopyanna

Hi everyone,

This is my first post and i'm looking for some advice from someone who knows please

I was 2 days late making my credit card payment in September. Payment was due on the 12th and made on the 11th but was online and so didn't clear until 14th. I understand that it's my error and the lender has been kind enough to reinstate my promotional rate.

The late payment charge shows on my September statement. My October statement has also just been produced.

I have just checked my credit report and score with experian. The cc in question shows only 0's and says that it was updated on 11th October.

I have checked my credit score which is 999.

So my questions are:

1. Do late payments always effect your credit history/rating?
2. Have i been lucky enough for the late payment not to have effected mine?
3. If the late payment shows up later on, does anyone know roughly by how much my credit score would be effected?

Many thanks for any advice or assistance you can offer

Anna

p.s. i've now set up a DD for my cc!

izools

1. Late payments don't always effect your credit rating. It depends if it is a regular occurrence, and if you have a lot of good repayment history. A late payment marker on an account only a few months old is going to look much worse than a late payment marker on an account many years old.
2. You need to wait at least one month for the creditor to update your credit reports and then have a look to see if your credit card has a [1] marked in the payment history.
3. Late payments never effect your credit score by a specific amount. It depends on the rest of the credit report data and application data. One late payment amidst a plethora of flawless repayment history isn't likely to make a difference, as long as you don't plan on applying for anything soon after missing the repayment.

My advice would be to wait at least 30 days after the next statement was produced on the account you missed the payment on, and get a copy of your credit report to see if the repayment history has any [1]s in it, which indicate a late payment - some creditors only report the account as late if you let the payment fall 30+ days overdue

Oh, and don't buy a credit score from Experian. It is only their interpretation of your credit file, using their score sheet. Every creditor has their own score sheet, and will give you a different score based on the same data, because of two facts:

a) Different creditors weight different aspects of your credit file more so or less so than the Credit Reference Agencies when calculating your score
b) Creditors include other data like time with employer / bank / at address, occupation, marital status, residential status, dependants, income, and income to debt ratio when calculating your score. Experian don't.