Unusual student loan situation

[Jamex]

It looks like I'm in a bit of a weird situation with a SL that I can't find on any other threads, so would love any advice.

Basically, I had a small student loan with Nelnet ($5500, I believe it was a Stafford or Perkins loan), and for a variety of family/personal reasons I never made any payments on it. Looking at my report, it looks like they rated it as "OK" for the first 2 years I was out of school (even though I wasn't paying), and then in late 2008 they gave me 4 120 day lates before closing the account in Jan 2009. It's now labeled as "Transferred/Sold" with a 0 balance. They never charged it off and it isn't labeled as a collection account.

A couple years ago I did hear from a CA about an old student loan, they set me up with a rehab option and I took it, and now my only student loan is with Sallie Mae, in good standing, with about 2400 left to go. (I had one other SL, directly from my college, that went into default, but I paid that one off in full directly to them, and they deleted that TL immediately)

I *think* the Nelnet loan was the original tradeline that led to my current loan with SLM, so I think I could ask them to delete it. But, because it never got charged-off, in 2016 the last of the lates will be gone and it'll show as a 0 balance closed student loan as a positive tradeline - right?

So my question is - should I push to get it deleted on the basis that it was rehabbed, or hang on until it becomes positive and keep an old account around to help with AAoA? Right now the Nelnet account has a "negative indicator" on all 3 bureaus, but TU & EQ call it "Paid/paying as agreed" whereas EX is calling it "180 days past due date." The reporting of this account on EX has prevented me from getting a CLI with Citi, but didn't prevent me from getting a new cc with Barclays (when I called to recon my limit, the analyst asked about another baddie but didn't seem to even notice this one). Other than AAoA concerns, my only other worry about pushing for deletion is if Nelnet "updated" my reporting in any way, rather than deleting, it could possibly harm my score (right now I'm trying to get approved for a dental financing plan and a new apartment).

Any advice on how to proceed?

[Shogun]

Any major purchases or credit plans before the lates fall off in 2016?

[Jamex]

The only things I'm trying to do from a credit perspective are apply for a new apartment (likely in the next 4-6 weeks) and apply for dental financing through Springstone (which is owned by Comenity). 

I'm not too worried about the apartment, since my overall score is in the 670s and if they read the report they'll see it's a 0 balance even if it's updated. The dental plan could be an issue, but it looks like Comenity pulls EQ and the only report where this TL seems to be a real problem is EX. The main pain-point that seems to come from this account is that it's blocking me from getting a CLI with Citi, though that's less of an issue now that Barclay's has let me in.

The only other thing I've considered is refinancing my car payment (since I got a sub-prime loan when I really needed it, it's at 19% interest), but I'm splitting that with my brother (it was a car for my mom when her old one died) so my share is manageable as-is which makes doing the refi more of a nice-to-have than a must-do.

[Shogun]

My personal opinion?  Get rid of it.  You have other SLs and an auto loan that will satisfy the installment portion. You may lose some AAoA, but personally, I like a nice clean report, or as close to one as I can get.  

[Jamex]

Thanks, Shogun, really appreciate the input. The next thing to figure out is whether in fact this is the account that was ultimately rehabbed (I admit it's pretty weak sauce that I don't know that one way or the other already), so I'll update once I've figured that out.

My guess is the best way to figure that out is by calling Nelnet, right? I'm thinking the best approach would be to call them with the presumption that I'm right, something like, "I recently completed a rehab agreement, and wanted to follow-up about getting the TL deleted," politely of course, but not with a pleading tone. And then if they come back with something like, "we don't have a record of rehabilitation," then I'd end the call and follow up with some sort of GW request?

I'm sorry my questions aren't more straightforward - this is my only account where the chain of events regarding ownership is fuzzy like this. Thanks in advance for any additional insight or suggestions.

[Shogun]

Your plan sounds pretty good to me.  Give it a shot!