So there are two things going on here:
- the SOL, which several people have mentioned, and are correct
- whether a credit card company likely maintained records for an account that is 15-years old and presumably closed
Even though though #1 is very usueful information, the OP is also curious about #2.
My best guess is that old accounts are purged after a certain time, and 15 years would definitely fall well-beyond the duration of maintenance. A creditor can elect to keep all files online. Data storage (hard disks) are cheap, but that is not the only reason that creditors prefer to purge old accounts. There are legal issues when maintaining the data. If the data is destroyed by fire, natural disaster, or other situation, the company cannot just say, "Oh well, those were accounts were we were owed money anyway, so..we'll just let that go." The company has to maintain financial accounts according to legal (federal/state/etc.) standards. So a company will try to maintain a balance between the potential loss of revenue from purge, vs. administrative headache of trying to keep debtors on the hook. The company will seek to eliminate accounting responsibilities, one way or another. That could mean selling the debt to another entity, or something else. The question becomes: Where is the "paper" trail?
One popular credit-card bank acquired other banks in 2013. The records for the closed accounts, at least the ones with zero-balance, regardless of payment history (not sure about the bad ones), from the acquired bank, were purged within months. If a dispute is made by a customer against the purged credit-card account with CRA, CRA has to do an investigation. OC Also has to do an investigation. But since records no longer exist for the account, OC cannot do true investigation, and therefore, inability to prove debt would be violation of regulations.
This not only happens with credit cards, but very old accounts for autombiles and other assets that were secured but came under bankruptcy protection (momentarily), but were never properly seized by the creditor: The records are lost, and the creditor has no way to speak about the debt. To avoid legal problems of trying to seize an old asset based on flimsy records, the creditor will sometimes surrender the asset.
If you are wondering how to determine whether records still exist, it is pretty simple: If you contact the OC, or the company that acquired the OC, and they spend days trying to find the account, and cannot tell you anything more than the amount due, then it is probably because they have lost/purged the account.
