Question:
If a credit card was charged-off over seven years ago, and thus it has been
deleted from a person's credit report, can a collection agency start
collections after then.
When I say after, I mean that the debt was not being collected before it was
removed from the report. Three months later collections started. What kind
of legal grounds do they have?
Answer:
Q: If a credit card was charged-off over seven years ago, and thus it has been
deleted from a person's credit report, can a collection agency start
collections after then.
A: Absolutely.
Q: When I say after, I mean that the debt was not being collected before it was
removed from the report. Three months later collections started. What kind
of legal grounds do they have?
A: They have essentially the same rights they did before--they can sue you,
obtain a judgement against you, and then attempt to have the judgement
enforced by seizing your assets or garnishing your wages.
You seem to have a popular misconception; the seven-year cutoff for
listing bad debt on credit reports is not a "statute of limitations" on the
debt itself. If seven years have passed since the last activity on the
account, you're entitled to have the information about the debt removed from
your credit report; but that does _not_ mean that the debt itself is no
longer valid. Unless your state has a separate statute of limitations on
the collection of debts, the creditor (or whoever the creditor sells the
debt to) can still go after you in court, just as they could before.
