DOFD is a required reporting to the CRA, and is stored in your credit file under the field code "FCRA Compliance Date/Date of First Deliquency."
The problem is that consumer credit reports are never a full reporting of all information in your credit file. Most dont provide the DOFD.
DOFD gets into your credit file under the provisions of FCRA 623(a)(5)(A), which in a nutshell, requires the OC, when they do a CO or refer a debt to a debt collector, to report the DOFD to the CRA within 90-days of CO or collection referral.
You can always get it simply by filing a request with the CRA under FCRA 609(a), which entitles you to any information in your credit file. Such a request requires pyment of a processing fee under FCRA 612(f), which is currently $10.50. So just file a request under FCRA 609(a), and include the fee of $10.50.
Reporting of a DOFD to your credit report does not necessarily ensure its accuracy. The way to legally prove your actual DOFD is to go back to your own account record, find the string of last account delinquencies that preceded any CO or CA, and then find the first delinqueny in that chain. That is your legal DOFD, and can be used to dispute the inclusion of any CO or CA after 7 years plus 180-days from that DOFD. Posting of dates to your CR can always be legally challenged.
To approximate you DOFD from listing of delinquencies in your CR, or from counting-back from any "projected" deletion date provded in your CR, usually does not provide you your true DOFD. It may be close, but is frequently not exact.
