For example, mailing a payment a few days late normally won't hurt your credit score. Although you may incur late fees and trigger higher interest rates, the big hurt comes when you miss a payment cycle entirely. A 30 day late report would shave 60 to 80 points from our lower scoring person and 90 to 110 points from our highest score. In other words, one lapse of attention could plunge the 680 score into subprime credit territory, and our 780 score could find credit much harder to get and more expensive.