options over credit history

Please help / advise:

A credit collections agency working on behalf of the original creditor (at least that's what they tell me, my payments are mailed to the cc but made payable to the oc) will not change by past-due time from 180 days.

The cc states they have to discuss and get approval from the oc to change past-due status on reports. I have contacted the cc on several occasions about this matter and they have only sent me back a letter stating that the oc did not understand the question and that they will continue to try and get a answer as to why I'm still listed as past-due for this account on my reports.

They did however show a recent payment in February but are still posting me as 180 day past-due. There's a long story behind how the cc even got involved in this that I will try to summarize. Basically, in late 2001 I had a parent get seriousl ill and consequently died in January 2002. On my reports it shows payment and a decreasing balance up until December 2001. At that time I did miss payments for the month of December, January and February as I was trying to take care of some personal business. I am contacted by the cc in late February, we are in dispute/negoiations from March through July, 2002. I sign an agreement to pay a set amount monthly starting in August and I have done so since August 2002. I noticed that I was posting at 180 days continues on my report in January 2003 and started contacting the cc about this at that time. As I mentioned before they only recently posted one payment starting in February.

Is there anything I can do, they are ruining my credit basically I believe because I have had the mis-fortune of having a parent die and missing some payments. I went into agreement because they would not accept payments until an agreement was signed. And now that I have done that I feel like I am being screwed.

Is this illegal for them to do based on the fair credit reporting act or some other act?

Can I sue or do anything in addition to asking them to update my report or do I have no recourse?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry for the long message - I wanted to make sure people had a enough of the background to respond.

 

Thanks for the link. of most interest was the section on "responsibilities of the furnisher" in section 623 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

I have sent a notice to the CRA recently not to directly dispute the 180-day posting but to put a statement on my file that basically disputes the current posting including proof of regular monthly payment over the last 8 months.

Should I also send a notice that disputes the accuracy of the past-due time?

Thank you.