A report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia revealed that credit card delinquencies, or past-due accounts, reached their highest level since the Bank began tracking them in 2012.
Creditors send reports to credit bureaus when a credit card payment is at least 30 days late, according to Experian, essentially giving consumers a 29-day grace period.
Experian stated that there are different codes for each 30-day interval of late payments, going all the way up to 180. So the longer a consumer takes to make a payment, the more their credit score can decrease.
Chip Lupo, an analyst at WalletHub, explained that consumers now use their credit cards for everyday expenses. “When the everyday expenses collide with the unexpected expenses, and you're running up those balances, and you're unable even to make the minimum payment,” he said.