Can I Get a Past Due Removed From a Credit Report?

Your credit report contains all the information about your activities as a credit user, including late or missed bill payments. Though you cannot always have a late bill payment removed from your credit report, you can have mistaken or old information removed by taking specific steps.

Credit Reports

You have to review each of your three credit reports before you can get anything removed from them. Go to the website authorized by the Federal Trade Commission, AnnualCreditReport.com, to request your credit report each year free of charge (see Resources). If you find any late bill payments listed on the report, collect all the information you can about the bill and any payments you made.

Errors

In general, you can only have errors removed from your credit report. If, for example, you were 30 days late in paying your credit card and that appears on your credit report, you cannot challenge the item claiming it is false. If, however, the late payment is there incorrectly, you can challenge this by notifying the credit reporting company about the error. You need to do this in writing and provide copies of any evidence you have backing up your claim.

Statement

Once notified of an error, the credit reporting company has to investigate the claim and decide if the item should be removed or not. Even if the credit reporting agency does not remove the late bill payment from your report, you do have the option of adding a personal statement to your report that explains the situation. You are allowed to include a brief statement of up to 100 words explaining why you believe the item is in error, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Good-Faith Adjustment

You can't generally remove a past bill record from your credit report unless it is one that has stayed on your report for too long. However, some financial advisers recommend that if you've had an excellent credit history and only have a single past-due payment on your report, you can ask your creditor for a goodwill adjustment. A goodwill adjustment is a written request you send to the creditor asking them to remove the late payment from your report.