The state statute of limitations on debt is separate and unrelated to the credit report exclusion date/period for exclusion of the collection from your credit report.
The SOL governs the date within which a civil action must be inititated if the owner seeks a court judgment ordering payment of a debt.
The credit report exclusion period for a collection governs the date after which a credit reporting agency (CRA) must discontinue showing of the derogatory item of information in credit reports that they issue.
The two are totally separate. Your state SOL on debt is immaterial to when a collection becomes excluded.
FCRA 605(c) defines the exclusion of a collection from your credit report as being based solely on one date-certain, which is the date of your first delinquency on the debt under your account with the creditor or business, after which the debt remained delinquent until the collection authority was obtained by the debt collector. The exclusion period is then no later than 7 years plus 180 days from the DOFD, with the CRAs routinely excluding at approx 7 years.
State statutes provide for certain events that can reset or set a new SOL, of which the normal events are making payments or firm offers to pay a delinquent debt. However, none of those provisions apply to the credit report exclusion date, which is based solely upon the DOFD.
A debt collector cannot alter the DOFD or credit report exclusion date by any action either on their part or yours, including verification of a debt, or your partial payment of the debt.
"Waiting for a collection to fall off" does not terminate consumer obligation for the debt. It only prevents the CRAs from continuing to show the collection in normal credit reports they issue.
A debt collector can still pursue efforts to collect, including credit report inquiries.
If a prospective creditor is aware of an unpaid delinquent debt, for example, they can still consider it in any lending determination they make, such as requiring its payment as a condition for approval of new credit.
