Yes.
That is the reason that the CRAs established their policy requiring a debt collector to delete their reported collection if they no longer have collection authority and the debt is unpaid. The CRA wishes to prevent two collections simultaneously appearing in a credit report on the same debt, so they set a policy that a first debt collector should delete.
A new debt collector can report their collection at any time after they obtain collection authority.
A consumer will often only become aware of a change in debt collectors by way of seeing their reporting in their credit report.
If a prior collection still remains, the consumer can contact the CRA and request its removal based on a new, and later, collection.
