 TITLE: Will Late Payments Affect My Credit During the COVID-19 Crisis? CONTENT: What to Do if a Late Payment Is Reported\n----------------------------------------\nIf a late payment is reported in error, or if a delinquency your lender agreed to assign natural-disaster status isn't noted accordingly, you should submit disputes to all three national credit bureaus to correct the entries and protect your credit scores. If you have backing documentation from the lender, you can provide it when you submit your dispute.\nConsider adding a consumer statement to your credit report. You can use this option to briefly explain circumstances that led to a specific series of missed or reduced payments on a single loan or account, or to describe general financial difficulties that led to missed payments on multiple accounts.\nConsumer statements don't negate delinquencies, and they won't help your credit score, but a lender reviewing your credit report as part of a loan application could give it consideration, and it could spark a beneficial conversation with a loan officer. Just be sure you remove the statement once your account has moved back into positive status or been removed from your credit report. A statement that informs lenders of past financial difficulties won't help you once the difficulty has passed.\nTo help you monitor your credit status during the pandemic, Experian and the other national credit bureaus are providing free weekly access to your credit reports at AnnualCreditReport.com. END