I wonder why everyone has missed the obvious answer here!

According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, negative listings can only be placed on your report for 7 years, beginning on the date of the delinquency.

If it’s still on your report, the creditor either “re-aged” the listing, or someone messed up and hasn’t removed it.

“Re-Aging” is when a collection agency gets your account, and places a later date on it. They may use the “charge off” date, or a date of last activity, or even simply lie just to keep it on your records.

This practice is illegal and you can sue them if you have proof and records on your account.

To remove the listing, send the credit bureau a dispute letter. Also send the creditor a letter demanding that they “validate” the listing. Be sure to word it that way! “Validate” means they must supply you with contracts, bills, receipts, and everything they the used to calculate what they claim you owe. Without this information, they can’t prove your debt, and can’t legally place a listing on your credit report.

If they don’t cooperate, sue them in small claims court. I’ve done it, it’s easy! Don’t let them push you around.

Read the Fair Credit Reporting Act for more info. Or contact me for more help.

If the debt is really this old you should have no problem getting it removed.

It should be earased after 7 years. write a letter stating it has been 7 years and you would like to see that earased or you will have to take further action

I just recently had some items (8) removed from my credit report. I went to annualcreditreport.com and got my credit report from all three of the major credit bureaus. I then was able to dispute everything that was either way old or not mine online with each of the credit bureaus. It took about 40 days before I got a response, but the credit bureau will conduct an investigation and send the original creditor a letter telling them they have 30 days to prove the account accurate. If they fail to provide that proof to the credit bureau, then the credit bureau MUST remove that derrogatory item. Once the investigation is complete they will send you an email letting you know the results and they will also send you a letter showing what the outcome of the investigation was for each item you disputed. If you work at it like a part time job and are really serious about cleaning up your credit, you can do it within about 3 months, and you dont have to spend the hundred of dollars other ppl are charging to do the same thing. There is also a statute of limitations which is that if the account is older than like 3 years, I think it is, they can no longer try to collect that debt, even through collection agencies. Good luck to you, I hope you have the same results I was able to get.

Pull up each of your credit reports (Transunion, Exifax and Experian). You’ll need to send a letter to each of the companies that the information shows on the report explaining why the information is incorrect. If you don’t send it to each company involved, it can still remain on a second or third report. Depending on what it is you’re applying for, usually a credit company will only pull up one of the three agencies however if you’re applying for something major, such as a home, they’ll pull what’s called a Trimerge which has all three companies and they’ll take the middle score for your actual credit score.

My advice is that although you can do this online or over the phone, write letters. This way you have hard evidence of contacting the company. Also. you can use a form letter for each company. They have 30 days to investigate and get back to you with their findings.

Good luck!

I recently got all three of my free credit reports and they were a total mess. There are actually two ways to take off an item from your credit report. You can call the credit agency and they will investigate it. It usually takes 90 days to get it examined. I found it was much faster to call the company that left the bad information. Sometimes they will remove the item, especially when you are a good customer. I told one company if they don’t take the item off, I will cancel my card

You write a letter asking that the item be investigated. State that they have a 30 day period to verify it or it must be removed. I have had 3 items removed this way that should no longer have been on there.

You must start by sending a letter to the credit company asking for it to be removed and giving a good reason. that will usually suffice.

Write to the credit reporting agency and explain the situation. They should check into it, and maybe remove the derogatory item or re-classify it.