My credit score dropped 40 points in one week because of a $29 mistake

Honestly, I was checking my credit score every day last month and it was sitting at 720. Then I missed a payment on a small store card I forgot I even had - a $29 balance for a t-shirt I bought in Denver. The card company reported it to all three bureaus and boom, dropped to 680 in under 7 days. Ngl, it took me 4 months of making every payment on time to get back to where I was. Has anyone else had a tiny bill wreck their score like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

hill.barbara2d ago

Actually it was probably more than just one missed payment causing that big of a drop. A single $29 missed payment usually hits around 100-110 points if you had a clean score like 720 before. Something else might have happened at the same time. Maybe your credit utilization jumped or another account reported a late payment too. I'd check your full credit report from annualcreditreport.com to see if there's an error or another item dragging it down. Four months to recover sounds about right for one late payment though, especially if you got it back to 720 quickly.

the_joseph2d ago

Wait what? A $29 missed payment dropped your score that much? I gotta admit I'm shocked. I've missed a payment before and it barely moved my score maybe 30 or 40 points. But I guess it depends on your history and how clean your report was before. Something about that number just seems off to me though. Maybe the credit card company reported it as a charge off instead of a late payment or something like that. You really gotta dig into the details because one late fee shouldn't wreck you that hard.