Okay, PLEASE don't jump down my throat on this -- maybe I'm just dense on this one, but nothing is telling me clearly exactly when the SOL starts. I've searched this board and two others trying to figure out WHEN TO START COUNTING THE SOL! I'm in New York State, so the SOL on CR TLs is 5 years. But 5 years from WHEN? Only one CR is showing this account. It says: Date opened 7/1997, Reported since 11/1999, Date of status 3/2000, Last reported 3/2000. Now. I found a link that took me to a legal definition of the start of the SOL, and it said (if I'm interpreting correctly) that the SOL starts 180 days from the date the first action occurred that began the process leading to the collection activity. That would mean that the SOL for this account would be 6 months (180 days) from WHEN? The date I incurred the actual debt and/or was first billed by the OC, which would have been in February 1997? The date the CR shows opened, which is July 1997 (the date it went to the CA, I presume)? The date it was first reported to the CRA by the CA, which seems to be November 1999 (though that seems an awfully long lapse between a report to collections and a report to a CRA, more than two years)? It was paid off in 3/2000, and the SOL couldn't have started running from that date. The link I read was clear on that at least. My confusion comes from the date opened/date reported, more than two years apart. Which of these dates are valid for counting the SOL? Or can I start it even earlier, at the first billing from the OC? I believe I got the first bill a month or so after the surgery (this was a physician's bill for surgery in a slip-and-fall accident). Bizwiz advised me in another thread to start with disputing the account as not mine. It is mine, though, and if they come back and validate it as mine does that have any effect on coming back with, "Okay, it's mine, so now I'm saying it's SOL"? And if it is SOL, shouldn't I just go that route? If I can count it from the Date Opened date of July 1997, that would fit. 180 days from July 1997 would be January 1998, and the 5-year SOL in New York would have been up in January 2003. I wouldn't even have to bother with trying to validate the date of the first billing from the OC. This is only on my EX CR and I have a Bank One rejection letter from July 2003 that says they used EX and the reason for the rejection was "Your credit report reflects chargeoff(s) or bad debt collection(s). This collection account is the only one, in fact the only neg, on the CR. The other neg factor on all my CRs is the high balance-to-CL ratio, but if they didn't mention that as a neg factor in their letter then would I be on the track in assuming if I get the collection TL deleted from EX CR, they would grant credit? Truth is, I completely forgot I'd applied for that card -- it was an ad on Amazon.com, my second home and I applied because you get a good rate and also $30 credit on Amazon. This was before I got the outlandish rate hike from Chase and came here and learned about available credit and FICO scores and debt-to-income ratios, etc. So second question: Would I be smart to get that collection TL deleted and try again for Bank One? If so, should I just reapply through Amazon.com like a new app or contact Bank One and ask for a reconsideration? Or should I get the TL deleted and just cool any additional credit requests until I get what I have paid down and cancel a couple of cards? My TU and EQ reports both said my FACO/FICO scores were lowered by having too many revolving accounts open. The only recent hard inquiry on this CR is the Bank One inquiry in July 2003; another one was November 2002, also Bank One (I believe that was from a pre-approved mail solicitation) and one from October 2002 from MBNA (pre-approved mail solicitation from a professional organization). Both of those were rejected but I don't remember why; I think I just said "Oh well" and tossed the rejection letters. Two more things: This CR has "Self-employed" in Personal Info section; should I ask for change to this, will they verify, will it affect CC application? This CR has one incorrect address and one address over 15 years old. Should I ask to have these deleted? Thanks a bunch!
The reporting period starts from the date of your first missed payment, in which the acct fell behind and was never again brought current, resulting in the eventual charge off. That is the date you go by, not when the card was opened and not when it was reported by the ca. The 5 year reporting period in NY is for paid charge offs - collections.
So what are you saying, that because this account was paid in 3/2000 that the SOL doesn't start until that date and the SOL isn't 5 years for this account? That doesn't sound right from what I was reading -- they said that the purpose of counting the SOL from the date the debt began and NOT from the date it was paid was to encourage instead of discourage payment. See why I'm confused? What do some of the rest of you think?
The term SOL (Statute of Limitations) is usually limited to the time at which you could be sued for collection. If it is a paid accont, it is just the reporting period. All 49 other states give 7 years, NY gives 5 years. Here's how you calculate this. The date you went delinquant (the first payment you missed that led to the charge off) so let's say that you started missing the payments on 4-98. Add 180 days (basically 6 months, so that would give you 10-98. Then add 5 years for the state of NY. Then the account should fall off your report in 10-03. You need to look for a date of last activity (DOLA) but some of the online CRA reports don't show that. They should also have a section that states "This item is scheduled to fall off on MM/YYYY" Again, some of the online reports don't show enough information. If you feel the date as described above puts the item out of the 5 years for reporting, dispute it with the CRA as "NY state 5 year reporting has expired and this account should no longer be on my report" and if in fact it has, they should delete. ChrisB
Well in that case, it is well over 5 years since the first "missed payment" because I NEVER made a payment on this account until I settled my court case in March 2000. I slipped and fell on my landlord's property in Feburary 1997 and broke my leg. I was a full-time student, unemployed with no insurance at the time. The surgeon, the hospital and all other care providers were informed at the time of service that my landlord's insurance company would be responsible for all bills. Shortly after my release from the hospital, I got a call from the insurance company telling me to send them all the bills and they would take care of everything. Luckily, I wasn't that stupid; I sent them copies of the bills. About two weeks after I came home from the hospital, I was visited by the claims adjuster, who offered me a flat $10,000 settlement to pay all bills, pain and suffering, etc. I refused, at which time I was told they would pay none of my bills until I signed a settlement. I called an attorney, but he was only able to get $1,000 out of them, with which I paid the smaller bills (ambulance, pharmacy, etc.). Hospital, surgeon and anesthesiologist bills remained outstanding. The attorney, at my direction, sent notification to all remaining creditors explaining the situation and affirming that payment in full would be made when a settlement was reached. We didn't reach court until March 2000. In the meantime, the hospital and surgeon sent their bills to collections, apparently in July 1997, and again I had my attorney deal with the CA. Nothing more was heard from them after this. On settlement of the case in March 2000, on the very day we walked out of court, I instructed my attorney to immediately send payment on my behalf to the remaining creditors, including the hospital and surgeon. This is the date showing on my CR as "Last reported." "Date opened" is showing as July 1997. This has to be the date the two accounts went to collections. This was NOT the date I first missed a payment; the first date I missed a payment would have been sometime in March or April 1997, when I was first billed for the hospital and surgeon's charges. It didn't go to collections until July 1997. If I'm understanding you correctly, then I am well over the 5 year SOL. The odd thing is, this is the surgeon's bill; the hospital bill, which was also sent to collections and also listed on my CR previously, is no longer listed. Yet the time frames were the same. What I'd like confirmation of is that I can use the July 1997 date as the date to start counting the 180 days + 5 years from. I'd also like comments on my other questions at the end of my post regarding erroneous information in the personal info category and the advisability of reapplying for Bank One once this is cleared up. Thanks again in advance for your help.
I don't believe that is what I said. Maybe you should re-read what I said. I said nothing about the date it was paid. I said the reporting period starts from the date of the first MISSED payment, in which the account was never brought current and eventually led to charge off. How do you come up with I said it starts from the paid date? Chris B said exactly what I said. "The date you went delinquant (the first payment you missed that led to the charge off)"
Well ... you have a LOT of stuff goin on in here Starstuff. Let me ask you this; have you tried talking to the hospital to try and get this resolved. Are you within driving distance of the hospital? Medical providers are usually pretty reasonable, and if you explain all this stuff to them, including that your Atty. sent them a letter about the settlement, they may very well recall the accounts as submitted in error. ??? .
Re: Re: CRA SOL on collection accou But then since the state of New York allows negatives to be reported on your credit report for 5 years, he/she can just dispute all the accounts with the CRA as having passed the 5 year reporting period in New York so they must delete. This is assuming the original poster still ives in New York. If he/she moved out of New York since the delinquancy, he/she will be stuck with them for a total of 7 years or approximatly January 2005. ChrisB
Re: Re: Re: CRA SOL on collection accou Keep in mind that in NY, only paid collections and charge offs will be deleted at 5 years. If unpaid, they will remain for 7 years.
Re: Re: Re: CRA SOL on collection accou I live in NY and I know definitely that only paid collections and charge-offs are 5 years and non paid collections and charge-offs are still 7 years. Also the SOL in NYS is 6 years not five.
Re: Re: CRA SOL on collection accou ChrisB, Do you mean that I can dispute items on my credit report just because they can't be collected anymore?? Do you know of anyone that has done this and was successful? If so, I have a few that I definitely can remove from my "young and stupid" days of getting so many credit cards, I couldn't afford to keep up the payments on them! LOL
Re: Re: Re: CRA SOL on collection a You can dispute anything on any of your credit reports that you wish to dispute. Some will even dispute as "Not Mine" when they know well that it is in hopes of it falling off. But what I was referring to (and I forgot about it being 5 years only for paid charge offs) is that if the legal reporting period has expired (or honestly if it's within 6 months of when it should fall off) you can dispute it with the CRA and they will in most cases delete the derog. The point of being collectable or not is a different issue altogether. That would be (state of New York example only) 6 years from the time of delinquancy, which in the original post would put it in July 2003. Just because you can't be sued for it isn't reason to be able to get it removed from your credit report, but being past the SOL is an affirmative defense if someone trys to sue you. Here's the method of deletion of all collection accounts that many on here have been successful with for any newbies: Please note, I do not suggest that anyone try any of this with accounts that are still within their SOL unless you've gotten to the end of your ropes and the CA is being harassing so you want to catch them breaking the law then sue them. 1: Dispute with the CA sending CRRR demand for validation. 2: Get the green card back indicating that it was delivered on XX day. 3: Submit a dispute to the CRAs. 4: Watch some fall off because the CA doesn't have valid proof of the debt so they don't validate with the CRA 5: Watch some do what is legally required of them and have the CRA mark the item as "Disputed by consumer" 6: Watch some commit violations of the FCRA by validating to the CRA without sending you valid proof of the debt being yours 7: Watch some of the CA's send what they think is valid proof of the debt 8: Have some of the CA's come back with a copy of the original application with your signature, and a stack of statements showing the charges and payments If you get any from section 5 above, keep a look out for any violations by the CA such as sending any more requests for payment or doing any inquiry on your credit report before they send you proof. Most likely they will return the debt to the OC. If you get any section 6, follow up with the second dispute to a CA letter giving them 15 days to respond, then you may do an ITS if you still don't get proof. If you get 7, indicate in a letter back to the CA that they didn't provide you with proof that the debt is yours (especially if they send you screen shots of their computer system) and wait for them to either drop it because you've made it not easy, or for them to violate. If you get 8, you can try the same thing again in 4-6 months hoping that they don't still validate, otherwise wait until the 7 year rreporting clock has expired and let it drop off on it's own. Hope this is uesful. ChrisB
Re: Re: CRA SOL on collection accou Okay, hold up. Please don't get annoyed with me, LKH, I'm not being dense on purpose -- honest! It's just that I cannot figure it out!!! That's why I keep harping on this, also hoping that someone else with the same kind of situation will benefit. Before I get into it, when I use SOL in the context of this post, I'm speaking about the time limit for retaining information on the CRA, not the legal limit for collection activity. This, in NY, where I live and where the debt originated, is 5 years (though I can't find anything that legally defines this, either, and I've been over the NY State website until my eyes crossed). The confusion arises because this account is PAID. It was paid in March 2000. It was NOT a chargeoff. If I understand correctly (and maybe this is the problem), a chargeoff is where you DO NOT pay and the OC writes it off as a bad debt. So when LKH says, "the reporting period starts 1) from the date of the first MISSED payment, 2) in which the account was never brought current and 3) eventually led to charge off," that is what's confusing to me, because there are three elements in that sentence that are contradictory as they relate to this situation: 1) The first MISSED payment would have been sometime in March or April of 1997, when the first bills from the surgeon arrived. (BTW, Butch, this account is the surgeon's, not the hospital's -- the hospital's account, which also went to collections at about the same time, and through the same CA, is gone from the CR. Reason: ????) The account was turned over to collection in July 1997. That would reasonably serve as the date of the first missed payment, I would think, as there would have been no collection activity in the first place if payment(s) hadn't been missed. 2) The account WAS brought current, in March 2000, when it was paid off. 3) The account WAS NOT charged off, it was paid in full in March 2000. So far, every post I've read and every legal link I've followed has addressed only accounts that were sent to collections after one or more missed payments, never brought current, and eventually charged off -- just like LKH describes. Since this series of events doesn't apply to my situation, I can't figure out which date is appropriate to use when I write to the CRA. I read in one place that the date of last activity is the date from which you begin counting the SOL. Well, taken literally, the date of last activity on this account would be March 2000, because that was the date the account was paid in full. However, in another place, I read that the FCRA does not use the date of the pay off of the debt as the start of the reporting SOL clock, because that would deter people from paying at all. Hence the "first missed payment" date. That makes it sound like I'm on solid ground when I claim that this account has aged off the CR: If July 1997 or earlier is used as the date of the first missed payment, then 180 days from July 1997 would be January 1998, and therefore the 5-year reporting SOL would have been up in January 2003. BUT, several posts have led me to question whether this applies to a PAID IN FULL collection account. It seems from what I've read that the law is applicable only if the account was never brought current and ultimately charged off. This is the crux of the confusion. I keep getting very carefully thought out answers and I deeply appreciate the time and interest of all the members who've tried to answer me. However, the answers I'm getting aren't clearly answering my question to where I feel confident in sending the CRRR letter to the CRA stating that the reporting SOL is up and they must delete this account's TL. I would feel a lot better if I could directly quote some portion of the FCRA or other legislation that would back this up for NY State, too, but I cannot find any reference to a 5-year reporting SOL, only for a 7-year collection SOL or a 10-year reporting SOL for bankruptcies and chargeoffs over $50,000. So if anyone can point me toward that portion of the legislation, I would be very grateful. Phew! I'm genuinely sorry to be so "anal" about this, but I don't want to open a crack for the CRA to hurt my FICO even more by saying something that they can turn around and dispute because I didn't get my legal facts straight. This one collection on this one CRA's report has definitely caused a credit turndown from one company recently. I'm sick of having to explain this one old medical collection -- I want it gone! Thanks again to everyone for your help and really remarkable patience! (sheepish grin, foot shuffle ...)
Re: Re: Re: Re: CRA SOL on collecti Where, if you know, can I find this information in writing? My account is a paid collection, so in NY it's 5 years that they can report it. Now if I can just get a definitive answer to what date I use to start counting the 5 years from, I'll be ready to send the CRRR and get one step closer to clearing this CR up. Thanks!
Re: Re: CRA SOL on collection accou StarStuff, If the account is paid then why are you worrying about eh SOL? The five year reporting period does entail paid collections and charge-offs but NYS's SOL is 6 years. If I'm correct (please anyone correct me if I'm not) if you have proof that you paid the collection in 2000, you're just waiting for it to be cleared off which should be in 2005. The SOL doesn't apply in your case. The SOL defense only applies if it the accoount was not paid. Please if I'm incorrect, someone correct me. I hope I helped you!
Reporting time limit on collection acct. See, this is the confusion! Paid or not paid, which applies where? And I think a part of the confusion is my fault because of my use of the term SOL. I don't mean the SOL for suing for an unpaid debt, I mean the SOL for reporting the TL on a CR. I've altered the subject line in hopes that this will help future seekers of wisdom. MadameWalker gave me a link to the NYS FCRA laws and I got what I think is a good handle on this (please, seasoned veterans, let us know if I'm off track here): S 380-j.(f)(1) Except as authorized under paragraph two of this subdivision, no consumer reporting agency may make any consumer report containing any of the following items of information ... (iv) accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss which antedate the report by more than seven years; or accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss, which have been paid and which antedate the report by more than five years So it seems that if the account was placed for collection and antedates the report by more than five years, and it's been paid, it cannot be legally reported. If it hasn't been paid, it can't be legally reported after seven years. Doesn't say anything about a 180 day waiting period. IMPORTANT NOTE: There's an exception noted further down that says the report can contain this information if the CR is being pulled for purposes of employment at a salary of more than $25,000 per year. So if this would be a concern to anyone, take note. Very valuable link, thank you MadameWalker!
Re: Re: CRA SOL on collection accou In your case, it sounds like the five year period applies since it is a paid account but I'm not a seasoned person like others here! Anyone agrees with my take on this?
Reporting time limit on collection Oh, here's the link (duh!) http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?cl=44&a=53 NY State FCRA Consolidated Laws
Reporting time limit on collection OK. Forget the word charge off. Use the word collection. Derogatory info can be reported for a maximum of 7 years. If paid, it can be reported for a max of 5 years in NY The date starts from the date of the first missed payment in which the acct was never again brought current, which led to the collection. Paying on it after it is sent to collection or charged off, does NOT restart the reporting clock. If it did, then it could be reported for much more than 5 years. That is illegal. Making a payment in some cases may restart the sol for collecting, but in your case it is paid in full, so you don't need to worry about that. Because you paid in 2000, doesn't mean it wasn't charged off in 1997 when they sent it to collection. Now, we'll use the date of July 2000 (the time it was turned in to collection, even though it was charged off prior) (Charge off doesn't mean that it was never ever paid, and paying after it is charged off or sent to collection, doesn't mean that it wasn't charged off) Anyway, we'll use the date it was sent to collection because that would be the latest the dola could have occurred. 5 years from that date is July 2002. Even though you paid it in 2000, remember, paying on a collection acct does NOT restart the reporting time. So, that acct should have been deleted over a year ago. Does this help make any sense of all of this?
