Credit Report - Late Payment
 

My wife charged $5 in September on a Capital One card, thinking she used her Chase card. We were signed up for online statements, never checked them. We THOUGHT we were enrolled in autopay, but that was her other 2 Capital One cards.

Last week, I consolidated our Mint.com accounts and immediately got an e-mail from them regarding a late payment charge. After the account was 120 days past due. They charged a $5 late fee the first month, $10 the second month, and $15 for the next 2 months (each month)... We owed $50. I called, explained what happened, and the rep was nice and credited the account and restored the interest rates. I checked her credit reports today, luckily they only reported it as 60 days past due. However, I was wondering if it would be possible to get this removed? I disputed it on all 3 bureaus and had Capital One send a dispute to them as well, but I have a gut feeling that won't work. Assuming that it does not, is there any sure fire way to get it removed from her report? I don't care if I have to pay.

It is legit, why would they remove it?

Dispute it based on what?

It was an honest mistake. It would have been nice if Capital One made an attempt to contact her during the 120 days it was late. I checked her e-mail as well, we only got one statement notification, and that was the first statement. No e-mails for the next four statements. No phone calls, letters, e-mails that the account was past due. Capital One agreed to credit the account, I was hoping that would give us some leeway to dispute it.

We accept fault, but it would have been nice if Capital One contacted her. We still wouldn't have known had we not gotten the alert from Mint.com.

Online statements are nice to avoid clutter, but I switched to paper statements.

Regardless of the legitimacy, my question is, are there any services out there that are known for getting things like this removed from a credit report.

If you have no other issues on the credit report I wouldn't worry about disputing this one. It will go away soon enough.

7 years, right? How long until it is no longer heavily factored into her score? Her score is 714 (down from ~775 before this incident)

Yeah, but in a year her credit score will be pretty close to the 775 it was before. Assuming it is an isolated incident and there are no other late payments noted.

She does have a 30 day in 2009 from Kohls. Her other 11 installment accounts are all good, student loans good, mortgage good, car loans and leases good.

Read the reviews for these services, they are pretty much all scams.

Dispute with CRA one at a time. Wait for the first dispute to come back before doing the second. Then wait for the third. This is so they see it three times. If it comes off of one it will drop from all three. If you still don't get it to drop GW the exec office, the contact info is on creditboards.

Before disputing it with CRA's I suggest you simply give Captial One a call and explain to them what happened. I've had 30-day late payments removed this way in the past.

If that doesn't work I would follow up with a goodwill letter to Capital One AND you could dispute it with the CRA's at the same time.

Good luck!