Can a company remove a delinquent (late 30, 60 ,90, collection) from
my credit report legally if it has been less then 7 years sense the
loan has been paid?

 I am trying to clean up my credit report and wanting to send letters
to companies who I have paid off loans in the past but been
delinquent. I want to ask them to remove the delinquent info that is
older then a few years. I want to see if this is 1) legal and 2)
reference to the FCRA (fair credit reporting act)  stating where this
is legal.

Hello Archerman,

Although the FCRA doesn't specifically address the legality of a
creditor removing accurate information from your files, it does
indicate that it is the responsibility of the creditor to provide
reporting agencies (such as Experian) with updated information:

" Duty to correct and update information. 

A person who 
     

        (A) regularly and in the ordinary course of business furnishes
information to one or more consumer reporting agencies about the
person's transactions or experiences with any consumer; and

        (B) has furnished to a consumer reporting agency information
that the person determines is not complete or accurate, shall promptly
notify the consumer reporting agency of that determination and provide
to the agency any corrections to that information, or any additional
information, that is necessary to make the information provided by the
person to the agency complete and accurate, and shall not thereafter
furnish to the agency any of the information that remains not complete
or accurate."

FCRA - Responsibilities of furnishers of information to consumer reporting agencies
http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra.htm#623

If you and your creditors come to an agreement regarding the status of
your accounts, the creditors are required by law to report this
updated information to the credit bureaus.

Whether you can convince your creditors to amend the information they
report about you (for instance, from "delinquent" to "paid as agreed")
is another story entirely.  While you can certainly ask your creditors
to amend the information (or even remove it entirely), accurate
information is rarely amended or removed:

"Negative information in your credit history can only be removed by
the creditor who reported the information. If the information is
correct, creditors rarely agree to remove it."

How To Use Your Credit Report - Janet Logan, Esq.
http://www.cafelaw.com/creditrepair.html#q5

"# Request that the creditor list your account as "Paid as Agreed" or
"Account closed -- Paid as Agreed." Any other listing will be a
negative mark on your credit report.

# Creditors list negative information on your credit report as a
business practice. It is not personal. Keep this in mind when
negotiating and use reasoning that makes business sense to the
creditor, not moral arguments.

# Negotiate with the collection agency to remove their listing
entirely from your report. A collection account is a negative, whether
it is "paid as agreed" or not. Make sure you get this agreement in
writing as well.

# Request that the collection agencies have your original creditors
change your account listings to "paid as agreed." Do not pay anything
to the collection agency until you have an agreement in writing from
your original creditor. Once you pay, your power to negotiate ends.

# Large creditors may be less willing to delete a negative listing
from your credit report. If you must settle for less than "paid as
agreed," try to negotiate for "paid" or "settled."[...]"

Removing Charge-offs from a Credit Report
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/debt/20030725a1.asp

The credit bureaus cannot delete accurate information, they can only
delete information that is erroneous or that cannot be verified. 
Information cannot otherwise be changed, except by the original
creditor:

"We store information from credit grantors, public records and other
reliable sources following the guidelines in the Fair Credit Reporting
Act. Your payment history is stored in the records of credit reporting
agencies. If you believe the information in your personal credit
report is inaccurate, then we'll investigate and correct or remove any
inaccurate information or information that cannot be verified.
Accurate information cannot be deleted."

Why can't you just remove information from my report?
http://www.experian.com/disputes/basics/faq.html#collection

"Only the original credit grantor can change information."

How to avoid credit-fix scams, correct report
Terry Savage - The Chicago Sun-Times - September 26, 2002
http://www.suntimes.com/output/savage/cst-fin-terry26.html

Although it is rare for creditors to amend negative information, it
*does* occasionally happen.  My husband and I recently purchased a
house.  In the course of getting ready for this, we set about cleaning
up our credit reports, and asked holders of old, paid off debts to
amend the way they reported the debts.  Two agreed, updating the
listings to "paid".

Congratulations on taking your credit firmly in hand.  I wish you the
best of luck when negotiating with your creditors.


Search terms: [remove collection information "credit report"],
["remove information" "credit report"

Thank you for the thorough response!