The date of first delinquency (DOFD) occurs under the OC account, and is unrelated to any dates related to the collection.
The DOFD, and DOFD alone, then determines the credit report exclusion date of the reported collection.
More specifically, the collection will be excluded by the CRA no later than 7 years plus 180 days from the reported DOFD. See FCRA 605(c).
The date a debt collector received collection authority (reported as the Open date of the collection) is irrelevant to credit report exclusion.
The procedure that a debt collector must follow for obtaining and reporting of the DOFD are set forth in legal detail under FCRA 623(a)(5).
In a nutshell, they should follow the following steps:
1. If the OC has reported a DOFD to the CRA (which they only do if they have reported a charge-off), the debt collector can report that same DOFD to the CRA without any need to contact the OC.
2. If there is no current reporting of the DOFD by the OC, the debt collector must contact the creditor and attempt to obtain the DOFD from them If the OC provides them a DOFD, then reporting of that date to the CRA complies with the statute.
3. If the debt collector has attempted to obtain the DOFD from the creditor, but the attemept is unsucessful, the fallback provision permits the debt collector to them make their best estimate of the DOFD, but in no case can then assume or report a DOFD that is later than the date they obtained their collection authority.
In your case, if you have evidence of earlier reporting by the creditor of the DOFD, you can assume that date remains accurate, and use it as basis for disputing the accuracy of any later reported DOFD.
The debt collector could still verify the accuracy of a later date if they show they actually contacted the creditor and obtained the later date directly from them.
Assuming the accuracy of the earlier date is a preliminary presumption that they can overcome if they show they resorted to step 2 above, and actually received statement of a later DOFD directly from the mouth of the creditor.
Reporting of the date they received collection authority as the DOFD would be proper only if they had to resort to step 3 above after failed attempt to obtain the DOFD under steps 1 or 2.
