Synchrony Bank

Hello, I have 3 late payments on my credit report from Synchrony Bank/Amazon. What is the best, cheapest, and most affordable way to remove these payments from my credit report? They are really hurting me.

If the late payments are accurate and the account is your responsibility, then the only way to remove them is time. If you want to share more about your profile, the posters here should be able to advise if there is anything else you can do to work on your score in the short term.

Winning12 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 12, 2023 9:28 pm Hello, I have 3 late payments on my credit report from Synchrony Bank/Amazon. What is the best, cheapest, and most affordable way to remove these payments from my credit report? They are really hurting me.

How old are they? Youngest and oldest? This is the way to remove them, but it really depends on how recent those lates are: viewtopic.php?p=328#p328 Slabenstein is also right, about it just taking time - in 6 month intervals, it seems. That means every 6 months since the most recent late, you might see a little score improvement. That's also how all the so-called 'credit repair organizations' get them removed. It will cost you some stamps - that's it! Never pay anyone to repair your credit, because that's all they can do, right there at that link.

Slabenstein wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 12:51 pm If the late payments are accurate and the account is your responsibility, then the only way to remove them is time. If you want to share more about your profile, the posters here should be able to advise if there is anything else you can do to work on your score in the short term.

Late payments were in March 2022, April 2022, and April 2023 People have told me letters of good faith work therefore I wont have to wait 7 years?

Winning12 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 10:54 pm Late payments were in March 2022, April 2022, and April 2023 People have told me letters of good faith work therefore I wont have to wait 7 years?

Correct. Read the GST thread that @Cassie linked for you above.

Slabenstein wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 12:51 pm If the late payments are accurate and the account is your responsibility, then the only way to remove them is time.

What about GW?

BrutalBodyShots wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 11:07 pm

Slabenstein wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 12:51 pm If the late payments are accurate and the account is your responsibility, then the only way to remove them is time.

What about GW?

That might have worked for the 2 from last year, after a year of on time payments... but I think the one march of this year removed that from the table. At least it would have for me, if I was reviewing it.

Winning12 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 10:54 pm

Slabenstein wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 12:51 pm If the late payments are accurate and the account is your responsibility, then the only way to remove them is time. If you want to share more about your profile, the posters here should be able to advise if there is anything else you can do to work on your score in the short term.

Late payments were in March 2022, April 2022, and April 2023 People have told me letters of good faith work therefore I wont have to wait 7 years?

Can you wait until October for a better credit score? That's when the most recent late will age to 6 months. That would be a better time to start the goodwill saturation letters.

Beefy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 11:15 pm That might have worked for the 2 from last year, after a year of on time payments... but I think the one march of this year removed that from the table. At least it would have for me, if I was reviewing it.

But when you use GST, you've got dozens of different people reviewing it. All you need is a single "yes" for success. I had late multiple late payments on Synchrony accounts (90D late severity at worst) that were not isolated and was able to get all of them removed using GST.

You can try disputing the negative(s). If the creditor does not reply in 30 days, the ruling goes to you. I have pretty good credit but I had a medical bill once that, yeah, technically was valid, but I did not agree with it and refused to pay it. I disputed it over and over and over, and finally prevailed because they did not respond.

Winning12 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 10:54 pm

Slabenstein wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 12:51 pm If the late payments are accurate and the account is your responsibility, then the only way to remove them is time. If you want to share more about your profile, the posters here should be able to advise if there is anything else you can do to work on your score in the short term.

Late payments were in March 2022, April 2022, and April 2023 People have told me letters of good faith work therefore I wont have to wait 7 years?

I did forget about the good-will saturation technique, but that's a very YMMV thing, imo. What results you'll get will depend on who your lender is, who actually reads your letters, your tenacity, and your luck. I think a lot of rebuilders here and on other forums have really great success stories from using this technique, like BBS above, but there are also a lot for whom a dedicated GWS campaign didn't result in removal. It doesn't cost you any more than the time it takes to write the letters and the postage (if you use snail mail), so there probably isn't much reason not to do it if you're trying to clean up your reports. But I wouldn't go into it with the expectation that the lates will be removed. (I work at a lender, and I can tell you that the overwhelming majority of goodwill deletion requests go nowhere.) If you do get some goodwill, then that's great, and if you don't, you at least tried and you're not worse off than you were before.

While I wouldn't cite a 100% success rate with GST, the overall results are overwhelmingly favorable. Those that say it "didn't work" usually quit after a Round or two, which in my view means they didn't see it through. It took me 8-9 Rounds to achieve success on 2 of the 4 dirty accounts I had; 2 were "easy" and the other 2 more difficult. There have been very few people that have implemented GST from my experience that executed it for months as intended that report failure in the end.

BrutalBodyShots wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 3:13 pm While I wouldn't cite a 100% success rate with GST, the overall results are overwhelmingly favorable. Those that say it "didn't work" usually quit after a Round or two, which in my view means they didn't see it through. It took me 8-9 Rounds to achieve success on 2 of the 4 dirty accounts I had; 2 were "easy" and the other 2 more difficult. There have been very few people that have implemented GST from my experience that executed it for months as intended that report failure in the end.

How you write it can go a long way, too. Most of the goodwill deletion requests I've seen were somewhat incoherent and, bafflingly, combative in tone. If you state clearly why you're writing them, what you're asking for, and why you're asking them to do it, your letter may at least get a better reading by whoever at the lender it ends up with. When addressing the lates specifically, I'd definitely advise not to deny responsibility or lay blame on the lender. If the reporting of the lates is accurate, then imo it's much better to acknowledge your responsibility and explain any extenuating circumstances. One other thing I would advise is to write the letter yourself. If you're copy-pasting a form letter from the internet, then whoever you're sending it to has probably already seen that same form letter many, many times before. A lot of those form letters are also poorly constructed and written from what one might charitably call a misunderstanding of credit reporting, so they're not making much of a case for you regardless.

Slabenstein wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 4:23 pm How you write it can go a long way, too. Most of the goodwill deletion requests I've seen were somewhat incoherent and, bafflingly, combative in tone. If you state clearly why you're writing them, what you're asking for, and why you're asking them to do it, your letter may at least get a better reading by whoever at the lender it ends up with. When addressing the lates specifically, I'd definitely advise not to deny responsibility or lay blame on the lender. If the reporting of the lates is accurate, then imo it's much better to acknowledge your responsibility and explain any extenuating circumstances. One other thing I would advise is to write the letter yourself. If you're copy-pasting a form letter from the internet, then whoever you're sending it to has probably already seen that same form letter many, many times before. A lot of those form letters are also poorly constructed and written from what one might charitably call a misunderstanding of credit reporting, so they're not making much of a case for you regardless.

Absolutely. I address this in what I coined the "CART" method for GW letter writing in this thread below: viewtopic.php?t=95 It's crucial that the right tone be taken with a GW letter, which is why the first two points of CART is Courtesy and Apologizing - too many people approach them with a victim attitude or are abrasive with the lender which goes against the concept of asking for forgiveness.

BrutalBodyShots wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 8:36 pm too many people approach them with a victim attitude or are abrasive with the lender which goes against the concept of asking for forgiveness.

I tell people on Reddit all the time the exact same thing, everytime you see some sob story of inattention "not my fault" narrative. Your autopay screwed up and you didn't bother to check for 6 months is absolutely your fault, own it, acknowledge your mistake and beg forgiveness.

Beefy wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2023 6:28 am

BrutalBodyShots wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 8:36 pm too many people approach them with a victim attitude or are abrasive with the lender which goes against the concept of asking for forgiveness.

I tell people on Reddit all the time the exact same thing, everytime you see some sob story of inattention "not my fault" narrative. Your autopay screwed up and you didn't bother to check for 6 months is absolutely your fault, own it, acknowledge your mistake and beg forgiveness.

I disagree that an autopay failure (that isn't due to insufficient funds) is on the customer. While I personally have read those stories and so I don't rely on autopay for anything (I have it set for everything I can in case something happens but manually pay everything) you can't expect everyone to be playing 4D chess with computer systems. If it was working before and it suddenly stopped working, that's on the creditor, and it should also be on them to reach out to the customer when it happens - through every contact point the customer has given them. While yes, 6 months is ridiculous, the first notification that someone had a missed payment should not be when Credit Karma emails to tell them about a score drop due to a late payment, and I've heard of exactly that situation happening.