What should my next step be?

Ideally, but there are a lot of ways a CA can get around it. It depends on how the debt was settled. If you make payments, expect it to follow you around for a while.

One deal I've seen (3rd-hand) is if you agree to make payments, the CA pays off the debt by lending you the money to pay it off and in doing so creates a new debt that resets the SOL and reporting date.

 

You also have to understand that there is another business behind uncollected debt. Some companies will sell their bad (i.e. uncollected) debt for pennies on the dollar to investment firms. These firms in turn will try and collect on some of this bad debt by "settling" with the people that owe these debts. They may call and say "You owe $1,000 dollars...why don't we just settle for $300 and consider it paid in full". If they bought that bad debt for $0.05 on every $1.00 of debt, they just got $300 what they paid $50 for, thus making a profit. All of this is often done even when the statute of limitations has expired, because many people don't know any better.

Also, be aware before doing any debt settlement in general. If you agree to do debt settlement with a credit card company, for example, you may only owe a portion of what your outstanding balance is, but in agreeing to that debt settlement, your credit score takes a significant hit -- many people are unaware of this.

So just continue to do your homework, talk to any state agencies dealing with consumer credit or consumer protection of some sort that may be able to give you some information and possibly free advice, and I think you'll come out of this with the best possible options.