Dale is wrong, and getting confused with the Statute of Limitations timeline.

tams is correct. Credit reporting period is 7 years, beginning on the day of delinquency. That means if you owed a bill on Jan 1, 2000 and missed that payment, that is your delinquincy date. Additional payments do NOT change this date.

You need to keep track of this, because many times collection agencies will miss report this date to the bureau in order to “re-age” the debt. It’s illegal, and if you can catch them doing it you can sue them.

Below is a link to a page with a lot of information about this topic, and about the Statute of Limitations. I think it will answer all of your questions.

It starts from the date of the delinquency…that is when you didn’t pay. Any collection accounts that result from the problem are also limited to seven years from the date of delinquency…not seven years from the date reported, so both the original and the collections will drop off at the same time. Research the Fair Credit Reporting Act for more info.

The reporting period is 7 years from the last activity on the account. If the account was charged off and reported to the bureau June 1999, then it should be dropping off of your credit report at the end of this month. On a collection account, i.e. medical, cable, cell phone, if you make a payment on the account after it goes to collection, the 7 year period will be from the date of the payment… the most recent activity.

it rotates, anything that is put on stays for 7 years