hello all, I made some payments via western union quick collect on the 27th & 28th day of the month along with the necessary late charges for these particular accounts, western union's own agent told me once your given a money control number by the agent thats doing the transaction, your payment is there in the creditor's hands/account. well they got the money like 5-10 min. but did not post the money to my account til the 30th or 31st day of the month. then repoerted me 30-day late with the CRA's who I have disputed with twice tu/exp/eqfx but won't remove. how should this be handled otherwise.......... help.
Most creditors state that you need to allow sufficient time for payments to be posted. Even though they have the money immediately, it takes them time to go through and identify each payment and attribute it to the appropriate account. I keep track of how long each of my creditors takes to post a payment, and I move my mail dates back accordingly. One small student loan furnisher takes 10 days to post once they receive it. I just know that I have to send the payment two weeks early so it posts on time. Most of the time, you can argue with them if their slow posting makes you late, but 2-3 days seems perfectly reasonable. Besides, if you were reported as >30 because it took 2-3 days to post, it was already late when you sent it, right?
I agree that you shouldn't be mailing it near to where it could be 30 days late, but there may be some legal issues around tacking on penalties based on when posted instead of when received. In particular, the Fair Credit Billing Act, which applies to revolving accounts (including CC accounts) requires sending of statements at least 14 days before a due date that would incur an interest or penalty charge. If a creditor thru delayed posting narrowed the time the consumer had to return a payment they would in effect be forced to also move up the time they would have to mail the bill. I have noted that one mortgage lender, for example, always notes on the following month's statement both the date received, and the date posted, so they are tracking the received date. As payments are received, they just need to keep track of the receipt date for each batch, even if posting occurs on a later date. If they were to sit on the payment following receipt, resulting in a "penalty", since the late payment definition is spelled out in detail in most mortgages, they would probably be nailed severely. Several CC companies have settled class action suits over what time of day a payment had to be received by to avoid late charges. If it was not clearly spelled out, they couldn't just arbitrarily cut off their pickup early to enhance their income. Several mortgage servicers, and several CC companies were fined due to using delayed posting to collect "penalties". You might lookup Providian, or Fairbanks Capital. Post office delivery date is an easily ascertained point for determining when the consumer's responsibilities end and the creditor's begin.
