Back in 2006, I retrieved a credit report from Equifax that listed a series of my outstanding debts, all of which were unsecured credit card debts.

On it was an item under American Express that listed a Date of Last Activity as 2001-04.

Last year in 2008, I pulled up another credit report from Equifax and many of my outstanding debts were no longer listed on the report as it had been over 6 years, which is past the statute of limitations date (I live in British Columbia) of when I last made payment to any of the creditors.

The only exception to this was one item which was listed under Collection Accounts as AMEX REVOLVING CARD, which belonged to the American Express.

This item was listed with a date of assignment 2007-12 and a date of last payment as 2003-10.

As far as I know, this item should not be on my credit report.

First, the date of assignment is past the SOL date, which is 6 years after the Date of Last Activity 2001-04. So the SOL expiration date would have been 2007-04. This assignment date of 2007-12 is 8 months after the SOL expired for this account.

Secondly, the Date of Last Payment is incorrect. The date of last payment is 2003-10 which is later than the Date of Last activity 2001-04 on my 2006 Equifax report. Now if my last payment was indeed 2003-10, then it would have shown up as so on a report that I pulled up in 2006.

So basically American Express is purposely changing information here, hoping I won't realize it and try to settle for payment. I believe this is illegal for them to do so and they've further damaged my credit report by doing so.

I've contacted and talked to Equifax notifying them of this, advising them that I have copies of my 2006 Equifax report which clearly state that the date of last activity on my American Express account is from 2001-04 and not 2003-10 and requesting that this Collection Account report be removed from the file.

The representative told me that I was to contact American Express myself and ask for American Express to remove it from the report as Equifax cannot do so.

First, I'm shocked Equifax wouldn't even try to investigate this for me and make some attempt to remove it. Secondly, I doubt American Express is going to smoothly remove this from my report as they or the collection agency representing them illegally and knowingly changed Date of Last Payment to a later date just to place it back on my file.

I'm also hesitant on contacting American Express as it would acknowledge that I owe the debt and possibly restart the SOL, even though the law says I would have to actually acknowledge in writing that I owe the debt in order to restart the SOL.

I'm wondering what action I can take here to resolve this matter. Would I have to seek legal representation? I'm looking to have this collection account removed and of course for American Express to abide by the law and not try something like this again. Would I also have a case to sue both Equifax and American Express here?

Thanks for the help ahead of time.

I'm far from an expert, and trying to get a little info of my own here, but here's my understanding from what I've seen so far.

1) Accounts can/will be listed on your credit report beyond the date the Statute of Limitations expires. Negative marks like this will remain on your report for a period of 7 years after they are incurred. The SOL just defines the point at which they can no longer legally force you to pay, as long as you openly declare that the SOL has expired should any legal action be taken against you.

I know this far from answers all your questions. Good luck to you.