With the help of this board over the past several years I cleaned up my credit, have CCs with high CLs, bought (and paid off) 3 cars with top tier financing, bought a house, etc. however had an accident last month that I was hoping someone can advise as to how to correct. While traveling for work, I overlooked my Home Depot bill and ended up getting dinged with a 30 day late on my CR. Funny thing is, Home Depot increasd my Cl at about the same time! Question 1 - How badly will this affect me? I have over 20 open credit lines with no issues dating back to 2001. Question 2 - Is there anyway to get this off? Should I appeal to Citbank/Home Depot? Should I dispute? Any help is appreciated! Jim
If you have a great record and this is your only oops, I'd call Citi/Home Depot and explain what happened and ask if they'd remove it as a goodwill gesture. If you have any other good lines with Citi you might want to mention that.
Thanks I will try. I figure that they see me as a good customer as my balance is low (taking advantage of promotional APR that was not affected) and keep giving me CL increases every few months so it may work. Thanks, Jim
The crooks at Citi will never remove/reverse anything. In the evening hours of September 10, 2001, a Monday I dropped my payment into the outgoing mailbox at the post office office, figuring it would get to the payment center by Friday, the due date. Because of what happened on the morning of September 11, that piece of mail didn't go anywhere. My payment was processed 5-6 days after the due date - and they slammed me with a late payment fee, and upped my interest rate. Called them, explained the timline, etc. - their comment - "you should have paid it online", and refused to reverse the late charge, and kept my interest rate at the higher level.
I have no idea what Citi card you had or what your past record was, but Citi and Chase both worked with me during the 9/11 time period and I had several late payment charges and interest removed. This taught me something else. I have set up all my Citi and Chase accounts on autopay. On the due date, they deduct the minimum from my checking account. You can set it up to take full balance, but I only do minimums in case I need to juggle some money around to pay a large bill. Then I can send them a check for the balance minus the minimum when I want to. If it's a day or two late I'll pay a little interest, but never a late fee or have a late reported.
Thanks for the comments on calling Citibank. Let's say that this doesn;t get removed. I haven't had any negative isuses since 2001. Let's say I keep my nose clean and keep paying down balances, how long until the effect diminishes?
