Strange credit card collection issue

[Halliep]

I posted this on another forum but didn't get any response, so trying again I have a strange dilemna with a credit card I had with a furniture store a few years ago. To make a long story short, I had a credit card with this very large furniture store and made a big mistake by allowing an ex-boyfriend to use the account to buy furniture for his daughters room. He was at first making the payments on time (and I didn't owe any money on the account myself). Lo and behold, he eventually fell behind, which I only realized when the collections agency sent me a letter (I was incredibly stupid and was giving him the statements believing he was paying this, without opening the statements). I immediately paid the entire debt on the collection agency's website. That was in May 2011.

I recently pulled my credit reports and this collection only shows up on my Experian report under the name of the furniture company (not in the name of the collection agency - the furniture company notes status as in collection). The weird thing is, it shows a "C" (for collection) back in 5/2011, then it's all good after I paid it off (shows "OK" starting in June 2011), until December 2012, now it shows a "C" again as if it's back in collection! The account is closed and has been closed since I paid it off back in May 2011 so I know there are no additional charges. It shows a balance of "0". I tried to go back to my bank statements for May 2011 and I can't find that the collection agency ever processed my payment! But it's been nearly two years now, and no one has been calling to try and collect - I haven't seen a single letter since I paid this off online. So I have to believe the payment went through...but why is it showing up in collections again all the sudden? Does anyone know how I should handle this? My main concern is that if it keeps appearing, it may "reset" that 7-year timeframe for appearing on my credit report. I want to take care of this so it can start aging off my report if its not already!

[RobertEG]

First, credit report exclusion of a collection is based only on the date of the first delinquency on the OC account that preceded the collection, so no later activity can reset the credit report exclusion date.

As for the reporting, I would call whoever reported and have a chat.  If that does not gain results, you can file a direct dispute with the reporting party challenging the accuracy of their reporting.  If the balance is $0, that contradicts active collection on a delinquent debt.

[Halliep]

The reason I'm worried about the date of "first delinquency" is that the delinquency would have been in early 2011 and Experian shows this will remain on my report until September of 2019. Strange!

To add to the strange-ness, I pulled a new Experian report today. The last one I had pulled was in January and this account only shows on my Experian report. Now, though it was showing delinquent for the first time in December (on the January report), today's report shows December, January, and February as okay, but has a "KD" for March.

[Halliep]

Just wanted to update this as I had great luck getting this taken care of! I called the furniture company customer service and explained the situation and they promised to delete the recent collection marks. But when that didn't fix the problem, I recently called back, explained the situation very politely, and the customer service rep said "you know what, why don't I just delete this entire trade line since it's old and you paid it off so long ago." Boom - two days later the entire trade line was gone along with all the associated baddies!!! Since I have decent AAoA I wasn't worried about losing the trade line. Exciting!!!