Just like any other loan you take out, your student loan or loans are reported to the three major credit reporting agencies either every month or every 90 days. If you make a payment past the grace period, your student loan provider will notify Equifax, Trans Union, and Experian that you made a payment late for a given month. Once this happens, you now have a negative late mark on all three credit reporting agencies for your student loan account. Each late mark will stay on your credit reports for seven years!
If you have ever looked at your credit reports, and I hope you do, you would then see either a 30, 60, 90, 120, or 180 day late mark identified for a given month. Any of these derogatory marks will hurt your FICO score, but the higher the number of days late the lower your FICO score will drop. If you continually make your student loan payments late each month, your FICO score will drop accordingly.
Before you get even more stressed out about late marks on your credit report, there is some hope for you to repair these and get your FICO score climbing towards that coveted 850 score. I am going to be honest and say that removing late marks for student loan accounts are the most difficult credit reporting repair items. Since most student loans are federally backed, the student loan providers have tighter restrictions on changing previously reported late marks.
You have two options available to repair your student loan credit reporting items: dispute the late marks with the credit reporting agencies or send a goodwill letter to the student loan provider.
Let’s explore the first option. Under the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act), you have the right to dispute any negative items on your credit report that you feel is inaccurate. Equifax, Trans Union, and Experian all have options to dispute by phone, by email, or my letter. I highly recommend you initiate a dispute by letter and be sure to send it certified mail with a return receipt. This method of dispute is the best because it leaves a paper trail. In order to dispute a late mark, you will first need to order your credit report from Equifax, Trans Union, and Experian. You can get one report free per year through annualcreditreport.com.
Once you have a current credit report from Equifax, Trans Union, and Experian, you can start the process of disputing any late mark you have on your credit reports for your student loan account(s). Here are the links to start the dipute process for the big three credit reporting agencies:
Your second option in case the dispute fails to remove the late marks is to send a goodwill letter to the student loan provider. Your goodwill letter should be clear and concise. The letter should ask if they would be willing to remove one or more late marks they are reporting to the three reporting agencies as an act of goodwill on their part. Keep in mind that they are under no obligation to change anything they are currently reporting so don’t be offensive. Keep it simple and keep it respectful. Once you have your letter complete, send it the the correspondence address for your student loan provider.
Don’t Give Up! If your unsuccessful at disputing off your late marks, try the goodwill letter. If both of these methods do not work, then keep trying. You can dispute the late marks on your credit reports every 2 -3 months. On the other hand, you can send a goodwill letter to your student loan provider as many times as you want. Just keep trying and stay positive!
Mark says:
My wife has half a dozen late marks for Sallie Mae on her credit reports. I had a couple of 30 day late marks on my credit report for Wells Fargo student loan. I disputed my wife’s lates with all of the credit reporting agencies and got none of them removed from her reports. I also sent in a goodwill letter to Wells Fargo asking if they would remove the late marks from my credit report. Low and behold, they did remove them. Either Wells Fargo is easier to deal with than Sallie Mae or a goodwill works better. I will have to work on getting a goodwill letter out to Sallie Mae for my wife’s late marks. Thanks for the advice.
Lauren says:
Does anyone have a copy of a letter they sent to Wells Fargo to remove negative remarks that was successful that they would be willing to share?
Jeremy says:
I have 2 30 day late marks on my credit reports for my student loan that is with sallie mae. I didn’t realize that you can dispute those through the credit agencies. I would love to have clean creidt report. Will give this a try and see what happens.