DOFD Question

[nicci205]

My husband has an old Verizon bill and the DOFD date is shown as 5/1/2013. When I googled Louisiana's SOL I found:

"In Louisiana, the statute of limitations for contracts whether oral or written is 10 years. Open accounts, like credit card agreements have a much shorter statute of limitations period of 3 years as do lawsuits, which are filed but not pursued. "

Would Verizon be considered an open account? If so, should it have been removed back in May 2016 or is May 2016 the deadline for them to sue us? Should we even worry about paying it after this long?

Thanks in advance  

[Anonymous]

The statute of limitations has nothing to do with the account showing on your credit report. In my state, the SoL is 4 years, but the credit bureaus will leave the item on there for 7.5 years from the DOFD. 

So to answer your question, if it's out of SOL, no, you don't have to pay it and you can't be sued for it. BUT, if you want to try and have it "look" better on your report, if you want to apply for new credit, such as a house, it will look better to the lender to have it show a $0 balance. There are also some collection agencies that will delete the tradeline if you offer to pay the outstanding balance in full.