The FCRA defines the 7-yr rule. For COs and CAs, the 7 to 7.5-yr clock starts at the DOFD of the debt. This is when you first went late and never ever recovered again (meaning it never went current again). If you pull your full reports from the CRAs or from annualcreditreport, EQ will show DOFD. TU and EX will show an estimated drop off date. You can subtract 7 yrs from that est. date to get a rough DOFD. More accurately, your old statements would be the best source for DOFD. Third-party reports, like from the various credit monitoring services out there, do not show this info.
For lates, they'll drop off 7 yrs from that month in which it was late, one late at a time. Sometimes creditors will drop the lates off in batches from multiple months over the course of one reporting. My last baddie did that...poof 5 lates disappeared on all 3 reports.
