The answer is unfortunately... YES and YES. As a matter of fact, I just settled a judgment earlier this year that has been disputed off my reports for 1-2 years (depending on which CRA). The atty for the creditor came looking for me, attempted to garnish my wages, attached to my checking account (nightmare to say the least). But I settled for about a 1/3 of what they were asking for.
Not at all, for two reasons. 1. The judgment was under my maiden name. My credit file no longer has my maiden name on it, so they have no way to match 'us' up. 2. The only way CRAs get info concerning a judgment is by sending someone that works for them (maybe even hiring some elderly part-timers) to go search public records at the courthouses. I have never heard of a 'dirt old' judgment just popping up, they usually get added to people's reports when they are fairly new. Mine is 3 years old. Plus, even if they did search old records, Reason #1 above will still kick in (maiden name/maried name will CYA, better yet mine, LOL) 3. CRAs (maybe only TU) use a method called cloaking, to prevent previously deleted items from being reinserted into the file.
I think some states have SOLs for garnishments and asset seizures. The timeline is pretty tight on most of them, like 1 year from the judgment date.
