Collections and the seven-year reporting rule
Negative items don't live on your report forever. The seven-year clock has specific start dates worth knowing.
The FCRA, at 15 U.S.C. §1605(a), caps how long most negative items can stay on your credit report at seven years. After that window, the item must be removed regardless of whether it was paid or settled. The trick is knowing exactly when the seven-year clock starts.
For a collection or charge-off, the clock starts on the 'date of first delinquency' — the date you first fell behind with the original creditor and never caught up. It does NOT restart when the debt is sold to another collector. A debt buyer cannot legally re-age the account by listing today's date as the start of the clock.
The rest of this is inside the portal
The step-by-step tactics, exact wording, and escalation sequence live in your Fix My Reports workspace, where they're applied to your own report items. Start with a $1 trial, then $50/month — cancel anytime.