I have several closed accounts on my cr....Sears, Fashion Bug, etc... some have been closed for 5 years or more - and now they are showing they've been updated as of 5/02 and 6/02. They weren't disputed (well Sears was the beginning of the year, but none of the others were). If they account is closed, why would it be updated? It hasn't appeared to fiddle with my score at all but I'm still curious as to the rationale (if there is one). Ozzy.
I think that they update if they creditor is still reporting the accts. even though they are closed. I guess it's okay if you want to keep them on your reports. In my case, I would rather have most of my closed accts aged off the rpt. so I find this practice v. frustrating. It's like the 7 or 10 years will never come if the accts. are handled this way.
The creditor can legally update what they are reporting any time within the 7 year SOL, even if the account is closed. For example, let's say you close an account with a balance on it. You pay them off after the account is closed. You'd certainly be upset if they didn't "update" your record to show it as paid 0 balance. However, if they do update, the information must be correct. Normally the update changes nothing or is in your favor. Some times an update happens when the OC or CA sends a new tape (electonic listing of accounts) to the CRB. The account is then updated when the tape is entered into the system, even though nothing has changed. An update can also be triggerd they change from system to system internally or even when you send a dispute or validation letter. I have seen OC's update on closed accounts and late pays actually drop off because they are beyond the records that they maintain. I had a charged off Citibank account that did just that. The late pays just dropped off after a couple of years..and then they deleted the account altogether, even before the 7 year SOL. I think you might be confused about the update process extending the time that the item can be reported. The date updated does not reage the accounts. Just because it shows as updated 7/2002 for example, doesn't change the date of last activity. It will still age off at the proper time based upon the date of last activity (DOLA), or at least by law it should. You can do a search on the term "DOLA" on this board for more info on how this works.
OC will also update the "Date Reported" on the CR if you have a closed account under investigation. Assuming they do things right, in this case, oc should only update the last date updated and NOT the date of last activity.
Thanks for all the responses! The accounts I was referring to are all closed, zero balances, no charge-offs or anything like that. They are all positive accounts, and the only one that was disputed was Sears and that was several months ago. I just found it odd that they all decide to be updated within the last 2-3 months. The DOLA doesn't bother me one way or the other and that hasn't changed, just when I flip down the column on Equifax looking for any changes, I look at when it was updated and like I said, accounts that have been closed for years are all of a sudden updating! Maybe it's just a strange coincidence - my score hasn't changed from the updating at all, so it's no big deal, but I guess I was just looking for some meaningful reason! But when dealing with CRA's I suppose there is no such thing as a meaningful reason! <g> Thanks again for everyone's thoughts and insights! Ozzy.
