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 be as damaging to your credit score as a collection account, judgment, or tax lien.

30 and 60 day late payments don't make as big of an impact on your credit score, but if you have a number of these negative listings on your credit reports, it shouldn't come as a surprise when your credit score isn't as high as you would prefer it to be.

Whether a late payment is reported as 30, 60, 90, or 120 days past due, your credit would likely be better if it didn't appear on your credit reports. Just about everyone would prefer to have this damaging credit listing cleaned up, but few realize there is anything they can do about it. What they are not aware of is that there are steps you can take in an effort to remove 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. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 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 have the right to question any items in your credit reports that you feel give others an unfair impression of your credit worthiness; including late payments.

If a credit bureau dispute doesn't result in a removal or if the reported late payment doesn't fit the definition of 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. On occasion, simply as a result of you asking nicely, they will agree to stop reporting a negative item. If this doesn't do the job, there are a number of more confrontational tactics you can employ based on your rights under consumer protection acts 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 will use their knowledge and experience to aid you in working towards your credit goals.