New Collection on Old Account Medical

[Anonymous]

I've been working on repairing my credit for several months now. I've read post after post and learned a lot. But one thing I don't feel like that is fair:

I've got a Medical Collection 12/09/12 that JUST reported on ALL THREE CRA'S. The reporting collection agency appears to be someone who bought it from the original Collection agency. So they just now reported this. As I said it was medical and I can't remember when I would have experienced such a claim. Not that I haven't, the previous years I went thru thousands $ and paid them.

So my question or statement whichever is WHY or HOW can it be ok for a collection agency to report such an old debt causing a huge drop in my credit scores. Everything I have read says they (the ones reported and showing on my credit report) tend to age off and don't have such an effect on your score. But these agencies are reporting like the account was just opened last week causing that huge drop. This account wasn't opened last week it was opened 6 years ago and should reflect that on my credit file. "Date Opened" doesn't necessarily mean the date the account was originally opened. It is the date the account was opened with the new collection agency. So in theory this single collection could have more than one post on my credit file and all with different "date opened" dates each time it gets sold to a newer collection agency.

This can't be fair/legal. I was at 626 with Equifax and now this 6 year old account has me.down to below 600. And it's almost a time bared debt. Any opinions or advice. I have disputed and plan on sending a debt validation. Kinda double they can provide all the necessary info since it has been so long and they are considered a junk debt buyer.

[RobertEG]

Consider first the reporting of delinquencies by an original creditor.

As the debt remains unpaid, they can update the period of delinquency since the date of initial delinquency, such as an update of a 60-late to a 90-late.

It is standard that the FICO risk of repayment analysis scores increased period of delinquency with a higher negative effect.

When a debt collector reports their collection on a delinquent debt, as the period of delinquency since the date of initial delinquency on the OC account increases, the scoring impact of the collection similarly increases.

Thus, as a debt collector makes either initial or updated reporting of their collection, the scoring impact depends upon the period since DOFD. 

When a debt collector makes their initial reporting, the Open Date of their collection (which is the date their received collection authority) determines the deliquency period since DOFD, and thus its calculated scoring impact.  If a new debt collector first reports on date X, the delinquency period is the same as if a prior debt collector reported an update to the CRA on date X that the debt remains unpaid, and thus still delinquent.

CRA policy prevents multiple collections reporting on the same debt, as a debt collector is required to delete their reported collection if their collection authority is terminated (either due to termination of assigned collection authority, if they did not own the debt, or by their sale of the debt to another if they did own the debt) and the debt remains unpaid.

Thus, you will not see multiple reported collections concurrently included in your credit report/scoring based on the same debt.