Yet another setback :( Need advice.

[Anonymous]

I've been working on my credit since the beginning of this year and had been doing very good. I had no lates is about 3 years and my score was getting decent. Then last month a collection appeared on my reports from a CA collecting for Comcast claiming the DOFD was in March of 2013. I thought that was impossible since I hadn't had a Comcast account since 2010. Today I found out that sometime last year my mom attempted to get Comcast service in her name at the same address where I had service in 2010 and she was told she couldn't get service there again until the old debt was settled. My mom acknowledged that the debt was her daughter's(mine) and also agreed to pay the old balance in order to get new service under her name, to the Comcast collection dept. She ultimately decided against paying and then a year later the account appears on my reports as just having gone delinquent. Was that enough to restart the clock on the debt? Is there anything I can do at this point? I'm just at a loss. I was so sure they were reporting wrong dates and now I have no clue what my next step would be. I want to call the OC and ask them about the DOFD but I'm scared now that it would be considered further acknowledgment of the account. Any advice would be appreciated.

[RobertEG]

I presume that the OC is not reporting, only the debt collector?

The debt collector is required to obtain the DOFD from the OC, as only they know when the first delinquency occured on their account in the most recent chain of delinquency that preceded their referreal to the debt collector, and to report that DOFD to the CRA within 90 days after reporting of their collection.  FCRA 623(a)(5).

If the debt collector made reaonable attempts to get the DOFD from the OC, and were unsuccessful, section 623(a)(5) permits them to make their best estimate of the DOFD, provided it is earlier than the date their received their collection authority.  A DOFD, by definition, must precede the date of the collection.

So the issue as to possible debt collector violation of their reporting of DOFD is whether they obtained a DOFD from the OC.  If they did, they were requried to have reported that date, not their best guess.

Based on the facts provided, it appears that the OC knows and should have notified the debt collector of a date of first delinquency that was back in circa 2010.

Either the debt collector did not contact the OC and simply reported their date of collection authority as the DOFD, which would be a violation of the statute, or they attmepted to contact the OC but were uncuccessful, and thus could properly estimate the date of collection authority as the DOFD, or the OC simply provided them an incorrect date.  At this point, it is hard to tell which of those three scenarios occured, so difficult to pinpoint the culprit.

But it clearly appears inaccurate.