I have been making small payments to a collection agency for a credit card that defaulted. I started doing thing before I know about the Limitation act and the two years. I have paid off about half of the 1600 dollars I owed to the credit card people. I checked my credit score with equifax and the payments I have been making have not been shown. Also it says a different company owns my debt to this credit card. So my question:

1) Is it the responsibility of the collection agency to update my payment history?
2) when will the debt leave my credit report? Six years AFTER I paid it off? Or six years after it first showed up on the report?
3) its possible they have been selling the debt back and forth between collection agencies, does that renew the 2 year limitation?

Thanks!

I have been making small payments to a collection agency for a credit card that defaulted. I started doing thing before I know about the Limitation act and the two years. I have paid off about half of the 1600 dollars I owed to the credit card people. I checked my credit score with equifax and the payments I have been making have not been shown. Also it says a different company owns my debt to this credit card. So my question:

1) Is it the responsibility of the collection agency to update my payment history?
2) when will the debt leave my credit report? Six years AFTER I paid it off? Or six years after it first showed up on the report?
3) its possible they have been selling the debt back and forth between collection agencies, does that renew the 2 year limitation?

Thanks!


YOU have the ability to write Equifax and correct your report - it's an opportunity to tell you side of things AND correct the payment history. If the payments have not been brought up to date it's possible that the debt was sold. Who are you paying? The name on the credit report or someone else?

The Statute runs from the last activity on the account - a charge OR a payment. The Statute (and I don't know where you are so I don't know if it's two years - Canada?) runs from the last PAYMENT you made. If you made a payment last month it's two years from then.

My experience in reading credit reports is that they stay until the account is paid for a number of years - ongoing accounts continue to appear BUT this is what a private legal site says: "The length of time a negative mark can stay on your credit report starts from the time you were late or the late payment went into collection, not from the last time you made a payment on the account. Some collection agencies update their reporting status on you to keep the account active with the bureaus to extend the time the account appears on your report. Very crafty and underhanded of them, because most often the account is updated and the period of time the account is active appears to be extended. This is illegal! Challenge this! If you do, bureaus will correctly remove it 7 years from origination. Period. In other words, paying a collection will not keep it on your credit report for a longer period of time." Credit Reports - How Long Do Negative Items Stay on My Credit Report? (http://www.creditinfocenter.com/creditreports/cr_time.shtml)

It quotes US (Federal) Law - and I don't know if you are in the US.

... 3) its possible they have been selling the debt back and forth between collection agencies, does that renew the 2 year limitation?
...

No. A sale of the debt from one creditor to someone else would not, unlike a payment made by you, renew the SOL.