When it comes to credit here is what you as consumers need to understand. A credit score focuses on recent negative and positive history. Lenders do not require you to have perfect credit. You can have charge off’s, collections, late payments and they will still do business with you.

But, they need to be older as why would a lender give you a line of credit in some form if you could not pay a recent bill on time?

A recent negative or late payment tells them (and the credit scoring system) that there is a problem or some financial instability and that you are not a good risk because of this. And your credit score will drop dramatically as a result reflecting that.

When it comes to cable providers specifically what you need to understand is you do not own those boxes. They are the companies and typically valued at approximately $230 each.

You need to assume that when you send them that their tracking system they have is poor to incompetent at best and you need to save the receipt for your records. You may not want to spend $25 to mail them but the question is do you want to try to fight them when they say you owe over $400 for two boxes they never received but you claimed you sent them and have no proof to prove your case, thus you and your credit lose.

In the book I wrote The Real World of Credit there is a specific chapter about this in detail but the main part you need to understand is documentation is king. You do not report to the credit bureaus the other companies do, they have your Social security number you do not have theirs thus you lose.

This is a monster system that you typically cannot win against. At the end of the day you signed a contract with them. Your claim they never told you there was a fee is wrong, they tell us all of that at the beginning when we sign up for their services we just forget. I tell everyone I have no clue what I had for dinner last Tuesday night so how am I supposed to remember what a service provider told me 9 months ago, correct?

So the moral of this story is SAVE YOUR PAPERWORK, receipts and any other papers you get when you terminate services with a cable provider or any other type of company. Even if you throw it in an old box if a problem arises worst case scenario is you have a box it’s in you just have to pour through it.

When you cancel/ end services and don’t get a receipt call them for one or log into your online account and print out a snapshot of what it says showing you have a zero balance, now you have some proof on your side for leverage.

NOTE: a 30 day recent late payment can drop your credit score anywhere typically from 60-90 points depending on the rest of your credit file.

*** Want to learn more about how the credit system works? Buy my book for easy to understand concepts of how credit works and how lenders look at you at http://waynethecreditguy.com/waynes-store