Late my 1 hour

It generally is legal for banks to have a cutoff time. This gives them time to close business and post all transactions before the staff goes home, so that when they come in the next day they are ready to start posting for that day.

We may not agree with it, but pretty much all banks/finance co's have a cutoff time.

If you don't have a history of being late, you might ask them to back-date your payment, taking into consideration it was only an hour. I've done that for my customers before to save a late charge.

Or even if they won't back date it, you might ask them if they will remove the late payment from your credit report. I once had a similar situation with my mortgage company. I wrote them a nice letter explaining the situation, and pointing out that I had never been late before, and also describing what my misunderstanding was that caused me to be late that particular time. They agreed to remove the late payment from my credit report.

I've also had similar success with credit cards (back when I had good credit and was never late). One time, I misread the bill and paid a slightly lower amount than my minimum payment, and another time (different card), I paid online a few minutes past their cutoff time. Both times they removed the late fees from my account.

Good luck!