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I Ruined my Credit Score

 I have acquired a dozen or so credit cards through time.  Many of them I have had for several years.  My Credit Report showsI have never been late with a payment to them.  Check out how I got a late payment removed.

I use Autopay to make sure all my cards and other loans are paid every month.  Most of the time I only use one or two of my credit cards.  However I pay Netflix on one, my phone on another, and small bills to keep my important cards active.

My HELOC Debacle

790 to 580! I went from a 790 credit score to 580 with only one change in my credit history.

I had three HELOCs.  I had three houses that were nearly paid off.   I put HELOCs on them for $100,000 each.  I owed a total of about $70,000 on the three houses.  I had autopay set up on all of the HELOCs.

I get a call from myBanker.  He said I needed to come in and sign some papers.  I forgot and he called again a couple weeks later.  I stopped in and he was on vacation.  So I forgot to catch up with him.

Four months later I'm looking at Credit Karma and see that I'm 120 days late on my line of credit payment.  My credit Score is now 580! I call up my Banker frantic saying what happened. 

My line of credit on one of the houses had expired.  It was ten years old and I needed to sign up for a new line of credit..  I had never missed or made a late payment    The loan had expired with a $20,000 balance and the bank quit making payments on the HELOC.  They could have easily transferred the balance to either of the other two HELOCs that had not expired.

My Banker could have called me and told me to transfer the $20,000 to one of my other HELOCs.  I had regularly transferred money into and out of my HELOCS over the phone.

So I go into my banker and sign the new paperwork and get the new line of credit lined up. I figured he would just eliminate the 120 day late payment from my credit history.  

Two months later my credit history still shows the late payment.  I call my banker and ask him to remove it.  He said he would look into it.

Two months later the negative is still on my account and I go in and my Banker had retired. I asked my new Banker to remove the negatives because it was as much their mess up as mine.

My New Bank Representative

My new Banker said he'd look into it. Three months later it's still in my credit history. My new Banker says it doesn't matter I have great credit with his bank and they don't care, I said I do care he said he'd look into it.

I contacted him again a couple months later and he said he couldn't do anything. 

Yes I was extremely frustrated.  However I did not burn my bridge and I did not blow up at my Banker.

In the nine months following the 120 day late payment my score rebounded a bit.  I had a lot of credit history.  My score came up to about 650.

After a couple of years my score moved to the low 700s.  After six years I still could not get my score over 800, it bounced around 750 to 780.  

It was a good thing I did not blow up at my Banker.  Three years after the payment snafu I built a new house and used the HELOCs to pay for it.  My score was still under 700. They loaned me the money at a low interest rate.  I would not have been able to get as low of interest from a different bank.

As soon as the missed payment turned seven years old it was removed from my history and my score jumped from 780 to over 820. 

My Credit Cards were Declined

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