Hi, my credit went bad close to 7 years ago due to the death of a roommate and I have been looking forward to starting over with a clean slate, and of course I have heard that negative credit items get removed after 7 years.
But I just checked my credit report today, and even though the 7 years is not quite up yet, I notice some negative accounts have the wrong date, such as "Date Opened: 04/2005" which is off by almost 5 years, but the company listed is not the one I owed, it's a collection agency. And I am assuming the date listed is when THEY got my account, not when the original account was first opened.
My question is, will these "collection" accounts affect my 7 year status? It almost appears to me that a few collection agencies are being "sneaky" and submitting new accounts with the same balance as the original debt, to extend the date of my 7 years so they can keep after me and stop my credit from getting better.
Do I have anything to worry about?
date opened is not DOFD
date of first delinquency. CAs generally buy these accounts a year later so this is a normal discrepancy. Did you check your account online? it is better to be reading a hard copy. It will show a date when the account will drop off.
Go to https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp and get hard copies of all your reports. it is important to get hard copies of all your reports so you have an accurate picture. You have the right to get at least one free copy of all three reports each year.
let me know what you see, and I may have some techniques for you to use to fix this. you can try disputing now to see if some things will leave early
Removing bad credit from credit report
Hi Tom,
Date of opening an account and date of first delinquency (DOFD) is not the same. However, can you tell as to what is the date that the collection agency is reporting?
However, the collection cannot affect the 7 year status. The negatives will fall off in 7 years from the date of first delinquency.
Thanks,
Aaron