Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Georgia

More facts are needed. What type debt was it, what state was it in, and when was the last payment on the debt?

I would agree, but generally, under the Fair Credit Reporting Act 15 U.S.C. � 1681c

(a) Information excluded from consumer reports

...no consumer reporting agency may make any consumer report containing

any of the following items of information:

:

(4) Accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss

which antedate the report by more than seven years.

This section applies for most types of debts. Bankruptcies, civil judgments or tax liens are different.

That means that a debt can stay on your credit report for about 7 1/2 years from when the account first became delinquent . Charge off typically occurs 180 days (6 months) after the account became delinquent.

Many junk debt buyers/debt collectors will illegally attempt to "refresh" the date of the debt by claiming that the account was just sold or placed with them recently and will use the more recent ate. Its up to the consumer to dispute this. Once you know that the debt has been delinquent for 7 years, order your credit report (get your real reports from www.annualcreditreport.com). Review your report and dispute any items that are stale or should be stale.

It should not matter what state you were in - this is a federal law that applies to credit reports. The federal law is the same in all states. An attorney would need to know when the account went delinquent and was charged off.