Expected exclusion dates provided by a CRA have some flexibility built in, and do not necessarily have to be the same with each CRA.
The statutory requirment, which applies to all collections, is that the CRA must exclude a collection no later than 7 years plus 180 days from the reported DOFD. The debt collector must obtain the DOFD from the creditor, and report it to the CRA no later than 90 days after they have reported their collection. Being a factual date-certain, the DOFD reported to each CRA should be the same.
Creditt reports normally take the position that consumers are not saavy in how exclusion is calculated and applied, and often dont know what a DOFD actually is, so they provide an estimated exclusion date rather than the max date of exclusion.
They typically provide an estimated exclusion date that is 7 years from the reported DOFD, as they build in a standard early exclusion of approx. 6 months.
To determine whether the estimated exclusion date is based on different reported DOFD's to each CRA or is simply a matter of the CRAs providing slightly different early exclusions, you need to obtain a credit report from each that shows the actual DOFD that was reported to the CRA. If they are different, you can have them corrected.
Reports from annualcreditreport.com or obtained directly from the CRA will normally provide the reported DOFD.
You can also send a request to the CRA under FCRA 609(a) to obtain the reported DOFD.
