Depending on how late a Creditor reports you were on a payment, even a single late payment on your credit reports can do serious damage to your Credit rating. One 90-day late payment added to your credit reports can damage your Credit Score as much as a collection account, judgment, or tax lien.

30 and 60 day late payments don't count as heavily against your credit score, but if you have a number of these negative listings on your credit reports, don't be surprised when your credit score isn't as high as you would like it to be.

Regardless of whether a late payment is reported as 30, 60, 90, or 120 days late, your credit would likely be better if it didn't appear on your credit reports. Almost everyone would want to have this derogatory credit listing erased, but few realize there is something they can do about it. What they are not aware of is that there are steps you can take in an effort to delete late payments from your credit reports. In fact, Lexington Law, a consumer advocacy law firm with 18 years of experience helping over 1/2 million Americans work to improve their credit, reports that their clients had over 140,000 late payments removed from their credit reports in 2008.

You have a number of options when it comes to clearing up your credit. For starters, under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), you have the right to dispute with the credit bureaus any items in your credit reports you feel may be inaccurate, untimely, misleading, incomplete, ambiguous, unverifiable, biased or unclear (known as "questionable" items). Essentially, you are able to to question any items that you feel give others an unfair impression of your Credit worthiness; including late payments.

If a credit bureau dispute is unsuccessful or if the reported late payment doesn't qualify as a questionable negative item, there are still options available to you. Your creditors have the ability to remove the items they have added to your credit reports whenever they have reason to do so. Sometimes, simply as a result of you asking nicely, they will agree to stop reporting a negative item. If this fails to produce results, there are more confrontational steps you can take that make use of your rights under consumer protection laws such as the Fair Credit Billing Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

It isn't necessarily easy, but with time, effort, and proper knowledge, you may be able to remove late payments from your credit reports. Of course, if you do not have the time or the desire to attempt repairing your own credit, there are a number of reputable credit repair companies who can make use of their experience to aid you in working towards your credit goals.