Situation: I moved 4 years ago. One of my cards (Citibank), they did not change my address when asked. I didn't really use the card, so I didn't notice. Months later, my wife charged something on a web site which apparently had that number stored. $16. So it was past where mail would be forwarded, so I never got the bill. I don't even remember how (maybe via telephone?), but sometime later they contacted me. The balance was over $60 with multiple late charges and it had been reported to the credit agency as a chargeoff. At the time I was not too credit savvy so I ended up just paying it. I tried to explain to the people at Citibank that tossing away a 12 year customer (it had been my first card) over a $16 card was absurd, but noone was even slightly helpful. Later on, having had more education about credit scores, I attempted to remove this black mark from my credit report. I continually sent in disputes on it and called them a couple times, but nothing changed. Lo and behold, today I check my report, and the account is completely gone as if it had never existed. My credit length went from 14 years to 11 years because of it, but my score jumped due to no more chargeoff. The question: Be happy it's gone and accept the three year drop in duration? Or try to get it back, clean? I'm leaning towards letting it stay gone.
Probably leave it for now. In 3 years it won't be able to reappear, and you will have history back up to 14 years anyway. In the future, when you change addresses, confirm by mail, and request a statement sent to your new address even if there is $0 balance. That way you know it is in their system. Telephone alone is not a reliable means of accomplishing anything that matters. You might have disputed based on their violation of FCBA for not processing the change of address if you had records to support your notice to them. You would have argued that since FCBA specifically requires using the new address when provided timely, and also requires that they send your statements to that address at least 14 days before the date after which additional charges would apply (the due date), their address screwup was an FCBA violation only correctable by waiving the late fees and treating it as paid timely when they finally corrected your address and billed in compliance with law. I had to use the above argument once with another bank to achieve a correction with no negative reporting.
