Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Pennsylvania

The debt was not removed because it was sold to another debt collector. It could have been removed due to age. It does not matter the reason since is redounds to your benefit. It depends on the age of the debt. Negative information can stay on your credit report for 7 years from the time that the debt was first sent for collection or it w as charged-off. Charge-off typically occurs about 6 months after you stopped paying on the debt.

When a debt is sold it can be reported by the owner/purchaser of the debt as well as the original creditor, however, the original creditor cannot report a balance. Some junk debt buyers will illegally "refresh" the date of the debt by using the date that the debt was purchased as the date of delinquency. This is up to you to police. If the debt is illegally refreshed, then you need to dispute this with the credit bureaus and the junk debt buyer. And if its re-added, you can demand an investigation as to why (google 6-2-3 method for disputing debts on a credit report).

Unless you are applying for credit to buy a home or get a car or a credit card, what is on your credit report generally has no effect on you (I say generally - there are special cases, like security clearances where they look at your credit report).

I recommend ordering a report at the beginning of the year from one of the 3 major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax and Trans Union). In May, order a report from a different bureau and in September do the final one. You are entitled to one free report each year from each of the bureaus (go to www.annualcreduitreport.com), but if you stagger this, you will see how things are being reported throughout the year. While your credit reports are supposed to be identical, not all creditors report to all the credit bureaus. Some only report to one.