Re-aging: the date change that resets your damage
A furnisher that moves the delinquency date keeps a negative item alive years past its expiration.
Nearly every negative item falls off seven years after the date of first delinquency on the original account. That date is fixed. It doesn't restart when the debt is sold, when a collector updates the account, or when you make a payment. When a tradeline shows a first-delinquency date later than the truth, the item is being re-aged — and it will stay on your file long past its legal window.
Re-aging is worth hunting for because it's binary: either the date matches the original account's history or it doesn't. Compare the collection's dates with the original creditor's tradeline and with the same item as reported by the other two bureaus. Mismatches are your dispute.
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.