topic Re: Newbie: Derogatory Acct - Wrong Date Opened for an acxct on CRA in Rebuilding Your Credit

Newbie: Derogatory Acct - Wrong Date Opened for an acxct on CRA

Grape — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 22:37:59 GMT

This is my first post here, so hopefully you will bear with me on this one. First off, I have been lurking on these forums for a couple of weeks now and already have taken away A LOT of extremely useful information and tips. So thank you to everyone on here, this really has become an invaluable source of information and insight for me.

To give a little background, I am in my mid-late 20s and really have only been taking care of my credit for the past two years or so. I am in the process of paying down some high balances on two CCs, and know once I decrease these my util% will look much more favorable. My last PFICO from WAMU was 644. I am waiting until next month to pull my myFICO reports and get more accurate info - but I do have a credit report from all 3 CRA dated 9/2007.

I am posting today because I have some questions regarding a couple derogatory accounts that all happened while I was ignorant, in college, and really didn't know much about credit. I HAD 3 derogatory accounts on my credit reports:

1) Date opened was 5/2001 and was from a utility company - it has fallen off in the last couple of months. YAY

2) An account for a past due satellite company account that shows a date opened of 12/20/2004 and that I PIF in installments to the CA and the final payment was made in 2/2008. (I started paying it off when I saw it on my report) The date opened date of this account is accurate, so I expect it to fall off around the end of 2011. It is already almost 4 years old, and there is nothing I can do here but wait.

3) The third account is my reason for writing this. The account is a derogatory account from the same time period as account #2 from a utility(for home phone and internet), yet it was sent to a CA and the date opened as reported by the CA is showing 8/2006, a good 20 months AFTER my first late payment on the account with the original creditor. I did not know much about credit reports, etc, and did not realize this discrepancy when I negotiated with the CA to settle the account in the end of 2007 for about half of what was due (195 of a total 313). The payments were to be made in 3 installments. I thought I had made all 3 of them, although apparently the final one did not process apparently. So, my account is still showing a balance of $183 as of last month when I got my free Experian report through another website.

So here is my question. Do I send a PFD letter to the CA, and see how that goes or do I first dispute the date opened with the CRA as it should be 20 months earlier than what was reported?? Unfortunately, I do not believe I have any statements left from when this account first became delinquent to prove the first date of delinquency, but the account was associated with the same address as account #2 above, which I moved from around 11/2004 and is partially a reason for missing these payments. Even if I do not succeed with my PFD letter, what can I do to assure the date opened accurately reflects when this account started to be delinquent?

Any help would be MUCH appreciated, as I am not sure how to best go about this. If you need any clarification or additional details, I will do my best to provide them. As this is my first post, I hope I did not violate any posting rules. Thanks in advance everyone.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, account #2 that shows opened in 12/2004 was actually delinquent as of 12/2003, as should be account number 3. So should I dispute both of those dates with CRAs?

Message Edited by Grape on 09-26-2008 11:19 AM

Message Edited by Grape on 09-26-2008 03:37 PM

Re: Newbie: Derogatory Acct - Wrong Date Opened for an acxct on CRA

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:45:02 GMT

Hi Grape, welcome to the forum. Your post is hard to read. When you post again please break it up. You will then have more people be able to read it.

First you need to know that the date (opened) reported by a CA is not the date that you opened or closed or was COd by the OC!!

The date opened listed by the CA is the date that they were assigned or bought the account.

CRTP = federal law dealing with what & how long anything can remain on your CR

SOL is set by each state & deals with the time period in which a creditor can file a lawsuit and win.

SOL....most states go by DOLA not DOFD if any payment was made after DOFD. So when you paid the CA this might have reset the SOL only.

If your DOFD was 12/2003 it should drop from your CR in 12/2010........but you might have reset the SOL.

I would send them a DV CMRRR wait until they answer you and then sen a PFD

Re: Newbie: Derogatory Acct - Wrong Date Opened for an acxct on CRA

Grape — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 22:36:10 GMT

Thanks HappyDays. I had thought I had spaced my post out so it would be easier to read, but I guess not. Thanks for the advice on that one.

And thanks for the advice on the CA. I have been giving this a lot of thought today and can I send a DV letter even though I have already partially paid them a year ago?

Also, how can I verify what is the DOFD? I do not see it on any of my reports (I have a TU from 9/2007 and an EX from freecreditreport on 8/2008) nor do I see any date indicating when these are scheduled to fall off.

As another note, I have been reading more on the forums today, the CA in question (which is a Palisades LLC account) WAS listed as a collections account on my TU report from 9/2007 and is now showing as an active TL that has a Key Derogatory mark on my 8/2008 EX report. (In fact, it notes the first Key Derogatory month as april 2007, LONG before I made any partial payments) What does this mean? Is this because they claim the third payment was never made as agreed (I KNOW I paid it by phone as I was obsessive about paying these off...."convenient" for them that it did not process). Can a CA report a collection amount as an active TL??

This all really sucks. Thanks again for the advice. I am not so worried about the SOL, as I am happy to pay the $180 or so they are claiming is still past due, I just want this to be off my CR as soon as legally possible and do not want them re-aging the debt.

Re: Newbie: Derogatory Acct - Wrong Date Opened for an acxct on CRA

Grape — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:27:24 GMT

Bump....

....Anyone?