Question about adding account history

[Anonymous]

I have been working on my credit for a few months now and I have actually made some progress thanks to forums like this.

Anyway, I have a couple of questions, I had a credit card that was open in 1995. I lost the card shortly after opening it.  It only shows up on my TU credit report but it was never late and is not reported negatively. However it does say card lost or stolen.

On my other two reports my credit history is five years old and on my TU it is 11 years. I know the length of credit history helps your score. Is there a way to get this reported on my other two CR even though I don't have the card anymore. I thought about calling the company, but it has been so long and they were bought by another company so I don't even think they would have the info anymore.

So my questions, Can I get this account reported on my other credit reports? If I do would it help my scores since the card is closed, and not reported anymore? If it would help how do I go about getting it reported? (I only have the partial account number that is on the TU report.)

Any suggestions?

[Anonymous]

When you loose your card, the original tradeline is updated as closed since lost/stolen, but you get a new entry with the newly issued card, which should inherit the history of the lost/stolen card.

As long as you still have the account open, you shouldn't have any trouble getting the creditor to report it if it's not showing up. If it's a closed account, they may still do it, but only may. In either case, send them a letter with as much relevant details as possible. Another thought, is perhaps reopening the card may be a good idea if it is closed.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for answering. I just looked over my TU report, it doesn't say that the account is open or closed. It states that the date of last activity is unknown. The description is credit card lost or stolen. And under current status it says unrated or bankruptcy.(which doesn't seem great to me, but I don't know). I don't think I can have the account reopened because the original lender has changed and I don't even have a full account number, not to mention my credit is not what it was when I originally opened the account. I just tend to think that having 11 years of credit history is far better than five. But if this account isn't updating maybe it doesn't make a difference.

[Anonymous]

Assuming the account is all positive, I really don't see what you have to loose by seeing if you can reopen it, or just report again. If you do want to reopen, there may be a hard inquiry, but that's a very short downside. In either case, still try calling/writing (for reopen probably the former, while just for reporting the later) the bank that bought out the original creditor.

[Anonymous]

Thanks again, I will try calling them.