Mark B. Huntley is a real estate investor, lawyer, personal finance writer, author, father, outdoorsman, spontaneous traveler, and will always be Padres faithful.
Updated on Feb 6, 2023Reviewed by Steve Rogers
Reviewed by: Steve Rogers All Articles →Steve Rogers has been a professional writer and editor for over 30 years, specializing in personal finance, investment, and the impact of political trends on financial markets and personal finances.
Fed up with searching for effective goodwill letter templates? We’ve tested over 15 to find the best one, and we’ll give it to you for free.
Although the goodwill forgiveness removal letter doesn’t work every time, it does work quite often, and it will usually boost your credit score if accepted by the creditor. You have nothing to lose from trying!
Click on the download button below to get your copy of our free Goodwill letter template. You will get the letter in PDF format. You may change it or use it exactly as it is written.
You send a goodwill letter to a creditor to request the removal of a negative record from your credit file, usually due to late payments or financial delinquency.
In this letter, you explain the reasons for your late payment and seek forgiveness. It’s like asking someone to overlook a minor mistake because of your past good relationship.
The goal is to show contrition and humility and to convince the creditor that this was a one-time error. Remember, you usually get only one chance to make your case, and if declined, the negative record stays for seven years.
👉 A goodwill adjustment letter is written to a creditor that has filed a negative record upon your credit file because you made a late payment or were delinquent on some financial agreement.
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There is a good chance the reason you are reading this is that you missed a payment, and it was reported to the credit bureaus, which significantly dropped your credit score.
Now, you are desperately trying to figure out how to fix this problem because of your creditor’s actions.
It is very likely that your creditors are lowering your credit limits, increasing your interest rates, and may even have closed some accounts.
Lenders are very wary of people who make late payments. It is the leading indicator of people who are going to eventually stop making payments.
For this reason, when a lender reports a negative experience with you to the credit agencies, everyone gets a bit nervous and starts trying to minimize their risk.
I know you are wondering, ‘do goodwill letters work?’
They do! They strike right at the very core of American tradition and civility. They represent a second chance.
We will review when a goodwill removal letter is appropriate, who you should send it to, and what you should include in it.
Further below, you will find free sample goodwill letters with multiple examples, templates, and PDFs to choose from.
They include the basic structures and outlines every goodwill deletion letter needs.
These letters also include personal details that you need to add yourself.
The most important concept you must convey in this letter is an attitude of apology and positivity.
Remember, you are the one responsible for this negative record, and this is not the time to lash out or blame the creditor for any reason.
Be sure to explain the reasons for your mistake and the steps you have taken to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
Provide any documentation or proof of any events that caused the late payment.
It never hurts to say something like, ‘I have been a happy customer for X years due to the incredible customer service I have received.’
Be sure to include any information that may make the person reading your letter empathetic to your plight.
💡 Another great strategy is to mention that you are planning to apply for one of their loan products, and you are concerned that your mistake may stop you from qualifying.
Be sure to do a quick search of their website and find an actual loan product. Sending our goodwill sample template with the [INSERT LOAN PRODUCT HERE] probably won’t help your case.
Again, a lot goes into a Goodwill deletion letter, and if they do not accept the first one, they won’t accept any subsequent ones. You’ll be stuck with the delinquency on your credit record for seven years.
The approach and type of goodwill deletion request letter you choose will depend on the type of black mark in your credit file you are asking to be removed.
Each of the below deletion letter types was written with those specifics in mind. Be sure to select the letter that explicitly pertains to your situation.
Both of these letters can help you improve your credit, but they are used in different ways.
If you are writing to a creditor, use a goodwill letter.
If you are writing to a credit bureau, use a dispute letter.
A credit bureau cannot remove a credit report entry as a goodwill gesture. Only the company that made the report can do that.
Most people will use a goodwill request to ask the creditor to remove a record of a late payment.
The letter for late payments can be written by following one of the free sample templates.
There is no reason for a company that has closed your account to respond favorably to a goodwill letter asking them to remove the record of a closed account.
Once the account is closed, it usually cannot be reopened.
Closed accounts could hurt your credit score by lowering the age of your credit history or affecting the amount of credit you have available.
A goodwill adjustment request most likely would not be effective for this problem.
Most goodwill deletion request letters will be to creditors, and so it is no surprise if you are wondering how to write a goodwill letter to creditors.
A Goodwill credit letter will include all of the same strategies that we have discussed throughout this article.
Be sure to apologize, explain what happened, and describe what you have done to make sure it does not happen again.
Deletion requests to creditors can be extremely effective in raising your credit score.
Usually, when you pay off a collection account, you can negotiate a ‘pay for delete’ clause into the agreement.
A pay for delete letter is sent offering to settle the collection account for a set amount of money. In exchange, the collection company agrees to delete the negative records filed with the credit bureaus.
Sending a goodwill letter to remove paid collection probably will not be effective since collection companies are cold-hearted and unempathetic. They don’t have any goodwill.
Generally, when you request credit, a potential lender will make a hard pull on your credit file, which will be recorded as a credit inquiry.
Inquiries stay on your file for two years. Unless you have a large number of them or you have a very thin credit file they do not affect your credit score by just a few points.
A goodwill letter is not a viable route to challenge an inquiry. A creditor cannot remove an inquiry they have already made.
All three of the big credit agencies, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion all offer a dispute process to challenge a credit inquiry.
So instead, you need to send a dispute letter. We have templates for you below, and you can read about how to send the dispute letter here.
Think about what you are actually asking a company to do if you send them a Goodwill Letter to remove a charge off.
A charge-off is when your lender gives up on you ever paying them, and they charge off the debt as a complete loss.
The only thing that they can take solace in is furnishing the credit agencies with a charge-off on your credit file.
You screwed them out of the money, and now they get to tell everyone about it, which will really screw you up on getting credit in the future.
So a goodwill letter to remove the charge off probably isn’t going to be too effective.
If you have missed a payment on your student loans, you may want to consider sending your loan servicer a Goodwill adjustment request for student loans.
There are many documented cases of goodwill letters successfully getting late or missed student loan payments deleted from credit records. If you catch up on the payment and send the letter quickly, the lender may not even report the late payment.
Keep in mind that most of these successful efforts included an excellent reason for the mistake. A solid payment history before and after the late payment also helps.
Be sure to know all the facts. For instance, a Federal student loan letter may be different than a private student loan because Federal service loan providers cannot report your late payments until they are 90 days past due.
Remember to keep the letter simple and to the point without a bunch of rambling.
Federal student loans are managed by loan servicers, and you will need to direct your goodwill letter to your loan servicer. Here are the addresses of some major loan servicers.
For federal student loans:
Navient Goodwill Forgiveness Letters
P.O. Box 4450
Portland, OR 97208-4450
For private student loans:
Navient Goodwill Removal Letter
P.O. Box 9640
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18773-9640
Sallie Mae Goodwill Deletion Letters
P.O. Box 3229
Wilmington, DE 19804-0229
Nelnet Goodwill Forgiveness Request Letter
P.O. Box 82561
Lincoln, NE 68501-2561
Great Lakes Goodwill Deletion Request Letter
P.O. Box 7860
Madison, WI 53707-7860
CornerStone Goodwill Removal Request Letter
P.O. Box 145122
Salt Lake City, UT
84114-5122
FedLoan Goodwill Forgiveness Removal Letter
P.O. Box 60610
Harrisburg, PA 17106-0610
MOHELA Goodwill Deletion Removal Letter
633 Spirit Drive
Chesterfield, MO 63005-1243
Edfinancial Goodwill Letter
P.O. Box 36008
Knoxville, TN 37930-6008
Fax: 800-887-6130
Just because your Goodwill letter did not work, does not mean that you cannot have the negative record removed from your credit report.
Even if almost everything on that negative record is true, you may still be able to file a credit dispute.
The rules are very clear when a furnisher sends information about you to the credit agencies, it must be 100% accurate.
That means that if anything is incorrect, you have the legal right and duty to dispute the record.
So, if your full name is Jack Liam Smith and a negative record is filed in your report under the name Jack F. Smith, guess what, dispute that joker!
Credit repair services are really good at going through every single detail of a record to find a mistake that you can use to dispute.
If you wrote a Goodwill Letter and nothing came of it, contact one of our top rated credit repair companies to see if they can help.
🔎 Additional Credit Repair Resources
Credit Repair Company Reviews:
DIY Credit Repair:
Our collection of free, fully-customizable letter templates is there to help you write effective letters when you need to set up, cancel or complain about something.
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Editorial NoteThe editorial content on this page is not provided or commissioned by any financial institution or other entity. Any opinions, analyses, reviews, statements, or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author alone, and may not have been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities prior to publication. We adhere to strict editorial guidelines to make sure that our content is accurate and unbiased.
Mark B. Huntley is a real estate investor, lawyer, personal finance writer, author, father, outdoorsman, spontaneous traveler, and will always be Padres faithful. Presently, he spends most of his waking hours producing content for the personal finance website he co-founded, CreditKnocks.com. His motto is - There are only three things you can count on in life… death, taxes, and late payments will ruin your credit score.
