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I have never seen a cable, cell phone, or utility account reported on my credit, other than the initial credit check to open the account. But it seems everyone
by sathackr 11y ago
I have never seen a cable, cell phone, or utility account reported on my credit, other than the initial credit check to open the account. But it seems everyone around me thinks paying a power bill late will affect their credit.
Do companies in other areas typically report such accounts to the credit agencies?
- toomuchtodo 11y agoIn the US, yes. Almost all utilities except perhaps the water company can report delinquent payments to the three credit agencies.
- chc 11y agoI don't know. For a while, I'd forget to pay my electric bill every other month or so, and SDG&E never did anything but send a polite reminder with my next bill.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoUsually takes a chargeoff (you never pay the delinquent amount) for it to hit your credit.
- jcrawfordor 11y agoUtilities generally consider your account to be in good standing so long as you don't fall more than two or three payments behind. They may use a late fee and/or a deposit return agreement to incentivize on-time payments, but they're not going to go after you (such as disconnecting service) until usually the 3rd month that you fail to pay, sometimes (especially for municipal utilities) much longer. Essentially, accounts paid late just aren't a big deal for them. They almost always get the money anyway.
- dsp1234 11y agoDo companies in other areas typically report such accounts to the credit agencies? Generally the companies themselves do not report to credit agencies. However, once the account is turned over to a collections company then that company will nearly always report the delinquency to the credit agencies. So from the consumer point of view, the statement "If I don't pay my bill, it will show up on my credit report" is true, but there is a middleman in the process.