 TITLE: How to Avoid Late Payments and Protect Your Credit CONTENT: What to Do if You've Already Missed a Payment\n---------------------------------------------\nIf you have already missed a due date, take steps to offset further damage:\n*   **Pay before you miss an entire cycle.** Missing a due date will usually trigger a late fee, but a late payment won't appear on your credit report until it's more than 29 days delinquent. That means you have some time to come up with the money before it does result in credit damage.\n*   **Communicate with the lender.** Although it's better to contact your lender before missing a payment, it's still wise to call after. At the very least you may be able to have the late payment fee waived.\n*   **Resume timely payments.** The more on-time payments you have listed on your credit report, the better for your score, so get back on track as soon as possible.\nOnce you're 30 days or more past due on a payment, the late payment will be noted and added to your credit report. Since creditors don't necessarily report updated information to the credit bureaus every day, it may take a few weeks for the late payment to show up on your credit report, at which point it may begin to have an impact on your scores. END