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BoA ... A hundred point credit score drop for unpaid $79 annual fee.

BoA ... A hundred point credit score drop for unpaid $79 annual fee.

Old Apr 20, 2018, 3:01 pm
  #1  
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BoA ... A hundred point credit score drop for unpaid $79 annual fee.

I'm 45 years old and have never had a late payment for anything ever in my life. In fact my credit score at one point last year was 850 (it fell to the 820s after I opened another CC). But thanks to my Amtrak visa card, my run is over. I don't use the card often and so don't check the balance often, unless I use it. But my annual fee came due in January and I must have agreed at some point to only electronic statements as I never got anything in the mail and I didn't see anything in my email that made me think that I had a balance due. Finally in March I signed in and saw that I was 32 days late for the January due date. I immediately paid it in full figuring it was no big deal, but then last week I get an alert from my credit monitoring service saying that my score had dropped 100 points!! A hundred point drop for a month late on a $79 bill... how ridiculous.

Yes, I clearly am mostly to blame since I didn't check my balance for 2 months, but I certainly would expect to hear something from BoA before they report a minuscule balance being a month late to the credit agencies, particularly since the balance was only due to their annual fee. How about a phone call, or an email stating in the subject 'Late Payment', or even a letter in the mail? Anything that would have made me notice would have resulted in an immediate payment.
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Old Apr 20, 2018, 4:14 pm
  #2  
 
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BoA might be willing to remove the negative information from your credit report if you call and ask.
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Old Apr 20, 2018, 7:21 pm
  #3  
 
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I'm paperless for all of my BoA credit cards, and when the statement closes, I always get an email notifying me that there's a new statement, and the email even contains the balance and minimum due, so I'm not sure why you don't get those. I do agree that they should send another email as the due date approaches like some banks do.

Even without due date notifications, BoA's statement notification emails are so much better than Chase's. Chase emails don't give you the balance, and Chase cards don't support ebills either, so it's so annoying to have to log into their website every month to find out how much I owe. This caused me to miss a payment once, but Chase was able to give me a one-time forgiveness.
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Old Apr 20, 2018, 7:40 pm
  #4  
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Originally Posted by jeanie
BoA might be willing to remove the negative information from your credit report if you call and ask.
Yup, that would be the first step @:-)
frank3355,
have you called?
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Old Apr 20, 2018, 9:23 pm
  #5  
 
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Originally Posted by frank3355
I'm 45 years old and have never had a late payment for anything ever in my life. In fact my credit score at one point last year was 850 (it fell to the 820s after I opened another CC). But thanks to my Amtrak visa card, my run is over. I don't use the card often and so don't check the balance often, unless I use it. But my annual fee came due in January and I must have agreed at some point to only electronic statements as I never got anything in the mail and I didn't see anything in my email that made me think that I had a balance due. Finally in March I signed in and saw that I was 32 days late for the January due date. I immediately paid it in full figuring it was no big deal, but then last week I get an alert from my credit monitoring service saying that my score had dropped 100 points!! A hundred point drop for a month late on a $79 bill... how ridiculous.

Yes, I clearly am mostly to blame since I didn't check my balance for 2 months, but I certainly would expect to hear something from BoA before they report a minuscule balance being a month late to the credit agencies, particularly since the balance was only due to their annual fee. How about a phone call, or an email stating in the subject 'Late Payment', or even a letter in the mail? Anything that would have made me notice would have resulted in an immediate payment.
You could also create a Mint account and monitor your accounts from one place. There is also a payment reminder section which could have alerted you to a balance. It's a moot point now but it may be of some use to you in the future. Also, I wholeheartedly recommend calling BOA and asking for leniency. Given a business relationship with them that is spotless as you claim, I think that you have a better than average chance of them "fixing" the issue as a courtesy.
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Old Apr 20, 2018, 10:14 pm
  #6  
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Originally Posted by frank3355
I'm 45 years old and have never had a late payment for anything ever in my life. In fact my credit score at one point last year was 850 (it fell to the 820s after I opened another CC). But thanks to my Amtrak visa card, my run is over. I don't use the card often and so don't check the balance often, unless I use it. But my annual fee came due in January and I must have agreed at some point to only electronic statements as I never got anything in the mail and I didn't see anything in my email that made me think that I had a balance due. Finally in March I signed in and saw that I was 32 days late for the January due date. I immediately paid it in full figuring it was no big deal, but then last week I get an alert from my credit monitoring service saying that my score had dropped 100 points!! A hundred point drop for a month late on a $79 bill... how ridiculous.

Yes, I clearly am mostly to blame since I didn't check my balance for 2 months, but I certainly would expect to hear something from BoA before they report a minuscule balance being a month late to the credit agencies, particularly since the balance was only due to their annual fee. How about a phone call, or an email stating in the subject 'Late Payment', or even a letter in the mail? Anything that would have made me notice would have resulted in an immediate payment.
You don't have "autopay" set up on all your card accounts? That's the best way to avoid a late pymt. Easy to set up.

Also, your credit is not "ruined". It's just temporarily impaired. Call/write them and hopefully they'll reverse it. If not, your score will slowly increase.
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Old Apr 21, 2018, 4:51 am
  #7  
 
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I had the same problem with a BOA card. Called, explained it was a new account and the autopayment wasn't set correctly (hinted that I got confused by their bizarre process for signing up) and was credited a refund on the late fees. No ding on credit report either. CALL THEM.

BTW- Only difference for me is I called in a few days after the fee posted so my credit score wasn't impacted.
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Old Apr 21, 2018, 8:19 am
  #8  
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Originally Posted by frank3355
I'm 45 years old and have never had a late payment for anything ever in my life. In fact my credit score at one point last year was 850 (it fell to the 820s after I opened another CC). But thanks to my Amtrak visa card, my run is over. I don't use the card often and so don't check the balance often, unless I use it. But my annual fee came due in January and I must have agreed at some point to only electronic statements as I never got anything in the mail and I didn't see anything in my email that made me think that I had a balance due. Finally in March I signed in and saw that I was 32 days late for the January due date. I immediately paid it in full figuring it was no big deal, but then last week I get an alert from my credit monitoring service saying that my score had dropped 100 points!! A hundred point drop for a month late on a $79 bill... how ridiculous.

Yes, I clearly am mostly to blame since I didn't check my balance for 2 months, but I certainly would expect to hear something from BoA before they report a minuscule balance being a month late to the credit agencies, particularly since the balance was only due to their annual fee. How about a phone call, or an email stating in the subject 'Late Payment', or even a letter in the mail? Anything that would have made me notice would have resulted in an immediate payment.
Why you blaming BA for ruining your credit?? It is all your own fault for not paying attention.

There are several tools folks can manage something like this.
1. Use finance software like Quicken
2. Use autopay at credit card sites
3. Use e-bill and autopay at your bank.

BA is one of the best banks with the bill management.

Last edited by RedSun; Apr 21, 2018 at 8:26 am
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Old Apr 21, 2018, 10:06 am
  #9  
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Originally Posted by RedSun
Why you blaming BA for ruining your credit?? It is all your own fault for not paying attention.

There are several tools folks can manage something like this.
1. Use finance software like Quicken
2. Use autopay at credit card sites
3. Use e-bill and autopay at your bank.

BA is one of the best banks with the bill management.
I would not use BofA to auto pay other bank's credit cards. This has caused me the exact 100 credit score loss a couple of years ago. It was my Macy's/Amx card. I had BoA bill pay to ebill / autopay this card. But their ebill is tied to the card number, not the actual account. Once Macy's/Amx renumbered my card and I signed up for paperless statements, auto pay stopped. By the time I noticed the late payment, it was all too late. AMX would not remove the spot on my credit report when I disputed it with all credit report agencies. They said I did miss the payment thanks to BoA ebills/autopay.

My conclusion is that there isn't a robust way to prevent missed payments completely. The best option is to use each individual credit card company's autopay. This unfortunately requires you to give your checking account number to all of your credit card companies and is quite tedious to setup. But in the case of BoA, their autopay is on the card number only, not on the actual credit card account! You must monitor all of your BoA credit card bills diligently or not use them at all.
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Old Apr 21, 2018, 12:10 pm
  #10  
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Originally Posted by MMU
I would not use BofA to auto pay other bank's credit cards. This has caused me the exact 100 credit score loss a couple of years ago. It was my Macy's/Amx card. I had BoA bill pay to ebill / autopay this card. But their ebill is tied to the card number, not the actual account. Once Macy's/Amx renumbered my card and I signed up for paperless statements, auto pay stopped. By the time I noticed the late payment, it was all too late. AMX would not remove the spot on my credit report when I disputed it with all credit report agencies. They said I did miss the payment thanks to BoA ebills/autopay.

My conclusion is that there isn't a robust way to prevent missed payments completely. The best option is to use each individual credit card company's autopay. This unfortunately requires you to give your checking account number to all of your credit card companies and is quite tedious to setup. But in the case of BoA, their autopay is on the card number only, not on the actual credit card account! You must monitor all of your BoA credit card bills diligently or not use them at all.
I totally disagree to set up autopay at each bank. Most of us have a lot of credit cards at quite a few CC banks. It it very unsecure to keep all the bank info at each bank. You increase the chance of getting hacked, say at Macy's. There is plenty news. It is also hard to manage like 15 payments at 7 banks.

One instance (your Macy's) does not mean the method failed. The bank says very clearly that the very first one or two payments won't be auto-paid. So pay attention to what service you get.
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Old Apr 21, 2018, 1:20 pm
  #11  
 
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I do not use my Southwest often, and they also have an annual fee that I was afraid it would miss.

I have that account set up to notify me if any balance is due.

Hopefully, they will work with you to get this off your credit report.
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Old Apr 21, 2018, 1:27 pm
  #12  
 
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Originally Posted by RedSun
One instance (your Macy's) does not mean the method failed. The bank says very clearly that the very first one or two payments won't be auto-paid. So pay attention to what service you get.
Off topic, but I cancelled my Macy's card! I had been working diligently to get my credit score up. When I used my Macy's card to purchase something (discount required use of card), I then went home and paid immediately.

Since I hardly ever use that card, I didn't check it. I had paid immediately in full, so had it as no payment due on my spreadsheet. Then I received a letter in the mail telling me $32.09 was overdue and had been sent to collection!

Apparently, when I made the payment, no amount was shown due, so they reversed it and put it back in my account rather than leaving the payment on the card, even though it showed the amount as a purchase when I paid the card. Not sure if that is normal, but it peed me right off because my credit had been good for many years with no late payment!

Last edited by EmailKid; Apr 21, 2018 at 1:46 pm Reason: Using symbols to hide profanity is not allowed on FlyerTalk
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Old Apr 21, 2018, 1:45 pm
  #13  
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Macy's has not issued credit cards for 25+ years. It's likely an Amex card co-branded with Macy's. But, if you look at the contract you signed, your agreement is with Amex.

But, you can't even be upset with Amex. Your agreement with Amex specifically prohibits maintaining a credit balance and you agreed to have the payment debited to Amex and returned to the payment account. It should have been visible in that account.

As with all the other experiences in this and other threads, you really do need to check your online statements on a regular basis. There are any number of things which can go wrong and which are easily fixed. If you can't remember, don't accept e-statements and at least you will have a mailed statement every month with a due date you can't miss.
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Old Apr 21, 2018, 2:05 pm
  #14  
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Originally Posted by Often1
Macy's has not issued credit cards for 25+ years. It's likely an Amex card co-branded with Macy's. But, if you look at the contract you signed, your agreement is with Amex.

But, you can't even be upset with Amex. Your agreement with Amex specifically prohibits maintaining a credit balance and you agreed to have the payment debited to Amex and returned to the payment account. It should have been visible in that account.

As with all the other experiences in this and other threads, you really do need to check your online statements on a regular basis. There are any number of things which can go wrong and which are easily fixed. If you can't remember, don't accept e-statements and at least you will have a mailed statement every month with a due date you can't miss.
Almost but not quite. Macys (DSNB) cards are managed by CITI The MACY's AMEX card is NOT an American Express issued card.
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Old Apr 21, 2018, 2:14 pm
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Originally Posted by FWI
Almost but not quite. Macys (DSNB) cards are managed by CITI The MACY's AMEX card is NOT an American Express issued card.
This is not correct. The current Macy's credit is from AMEXDSNB. The bank is Department Store National Bank. It is similar to the Wells Fargo Propel AmEx card. Blame DSNB on it, not AmEx.
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