Almost aged out chargeoff, suddenly being reported for missed payments??

[Anonymous]

Hello all, I hope you can clarify what I should do!

I have a medical charge-off that has been in collections from back in 2010. It hits 7 years this December. They only report to Transunion. On my last update, that account was pulled from being listed as a derogatory mark, BUT it was listed as having a missed payment.

How can a charge-off with a zero balance (5k debt), and NO payment arrangement, and no due-date be reported as a missed payment?? Is this a simple reporting error, or is the collection agent up to something? I have had No contact with the debt agency that was holding this debt since 2010. I am not sure why they would stop reporting it as in collections, nor how they can list it as having a missed payment. I had a perfect 100% payment history until this.
Do I contact the collection agent, or dispute it with the reporting agency's?

Thanks to anyone that knows more about these things than I do!!

[RobertEG]

Is the reporting being referred to that of the original creditor or the debt collector?

Each can report, and both can simultaneously show in your credit report.

The original creditor reports the payment history on their account.

If they reported a charge-off, then the debt was delinquent at the time they took the charge-off.  Many creditors will only report once they have taken a charge-off, but that does not mean there were no prior delinquencies.  They can add prior delinquencies at any time, as long as they are accurate.

It is unclear as to how you could have had a perfect payment history prior to their taking of a charge-off??

Taking of a charge-off does not negate any prior or continued delinquencies on the debt, so has no real bearing on their reporting of monthly delinquencies.

If the OC account has been updated to show $0 balance and you have not paid the debt, that means they have sold the debt to the debt collector.

Thus, you can no longer make any payments to the original creditor, such as offering a pay for deletion to remove the reported charge-off or any delinquencies.

Does your credit report show a collection reported by the debt collector?

[Anonymous]

The account is being reported by the Collection agency as past due. I never had a payment schedule with them to be past due upon.

The OC by law cant report anything new on the account since they gave up ownership of the account when they charged it off if I am not mistaken. That was in 2010.

Are you saying the OC has looked at the account and backdated a missed payment from 2010?

Since this account is so old, and it's a Medical bill, not a Loan/Credit card account; Since I have never missed a payment on those types of accounts, it is very possible to have a 100% payment history, even while having this type of an open collections account. (i think?)

My question remains however, can a debt collector with this type of collection report a missed payment with no prior contact or agreed upon payment plan??

[RobertEG]

Yes, an original creditor can report an old delinquency from 2010, provided it was legit.

As for a debt collector "reporting" a delinquency, no, the consumer does not have monthly delinquencies that occur by not paying on a collection, but any collection is by definition on a delinquent account.

It is common for commercial credit reports to include the level of delinquency that occured on the corresponding OC account, but that is not reporting of a delinquency by the debt collector, and is not scored by FICO as a payment history delinquency.