At what point of an accounts life does a late pay no longer adversely affect the account? Is there a so-called timetable? At what point do you not dispute a late pay b/c if that tradeline were deleted (instead of updated) that would affect your credit negatively?
Late pays continue to hurt your ability to acquire credit till the day they are dragged off your credit reports by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Its pretty much anybody's guess as to where the line is drawn between benifits of removing bad credit and the cons of diluting the good credit generated by the age of the account in relation to FICO. Each persons report is diffrent and there are so many variables to consider in the FICO scoring model.
Well the reason I asked is we had a discussion going last night about this. At it was kinda established that old late pays weren't as bad as having that old TL deleted (instead of updated to never late). For example, I disputed 2 old (1997, 1998) TL's as never late on Equifax, my score dropped 6 points. Someone else spoke up and her DH's report took a hit when they disputed something as never late and it was deleted instead. Other than the 2 disputes I have going on w/ Equifax right now, I don't have any late pays, I was just curious (and hoping I really didn't mess up by disputing these) more than anything!
In January I disputed a TL that had 1 30 day late in 5/2000 as never late. Experian deleted the TL and I lost 6 points. This was my first attempt at cleaning up my reports so I didn't know what to expect.
