NEW AND READY TO ROCK AND ROLL

There is a difference between a cease-comm and a DV letter. If you haven't already, I would send the CA a DV letter. Until they provide you with this information, they cannot report you to the CRA (that would be considered a collection activity).

Also, Date of Last Activity has no bearing on re-aging. The Date of First Default is what determines when a tradeline will drop off your report (7.5 years from DOFD). DOLA could be the latest update of the tradeline by the data furnisher. Are the original creditors still reporting these as well? Call the credit bureaus and ask for the date of first default on both the original creditors' and the CA's tradelines. Those dates should match. If the CA's dates are newer than the OC's, then you have a case of re-aging.

What will happen with changing date of last activity is a potential drop in your FICO score. Recent updates show as recent activity which, to the FICO algorithm, is fresh derogatory info, therefore dropping your score. If the tradelines show an open date older than 2 years ago, the drop is not as bad.

I disagree about your contention that reporting to the CRAs is considered collection activity. The CAs have already reported the accounts on undeniableone's credit reports, he evidently didn't send his DV to the CAs before the 30 day deadline that he was allowed. However, should the CA not validate the debt then it should be removed from his credit report and if it is validated, should be noted as "disputed" on his credit report.

Wether the DV was timely or not, the tradeline must be shown as disputed.

Nascar - if it reports as "disputed" does that help or hurt your scores at all? Does it make a difference that it's reported as such? Just curious?

From everything that I have read, disputed line items are not supposed to be figured into the FICO algorithm but since it is such a secret proprietary formula, I haven't seen confirmation of that. It definately impacts the FAKO scores you pull from TrueCredit and the like. As of yesterday my TC FAKO was 617 but my TU FICO was 697....

Sounds more intense than being on double secret probation!! 8)

The credit scores do not consider special comments in its calculation.

There are various comments that can be placed on a tradeline, such as "Closed by Consumer," "Closed By Credit Grantor," "Special Handling," Etc. "Disputed by consumer" or "Investigation Completed, Consumer Disagrees" are merely comments that do not affect the credit score.

I think whoever claimed disputed items aren't counted, it was just wishful thinking on their part. If that was true, anyone with bad credit should dispute their entire credit report, and then they'd have good credit scores.

Undeniable again. The first item on my credit report is from Diversified Consultants on behalf of Sprint. I never received any information from them so I was not able to respond. It is sitting on my credit report as of 8-2008. Now Pentagroup is trying to collect the Sprint debt because I received a letter yesterday. I would like to pay Sprint off since they still might own the debt and in the meantime I will send a DV to Pentagroup which I have 29 days to do. The other item is from Debt Credit Services on behalf of AT&T. I sent them a DV and they sent back past statements which I came back and told them this did not tell me that they were authorized the collect in my state or if they owned the debt. I never got a response and this was put on my credit report 5-08 while I was waiting for them to inform me if they owned the debt . Debt Credit said that I would have to get any other dispute info from AT&T. Sorry this is long but I am so confused and would like to clear this up.

Like I said...never been able to confirm it.

Diversified is also reporting on my credit report, I would like to send them a DV letter since I have never rcvd anything from them but I dod not have the address and is it possible for me to fax one??? If so how can I obtain their fax number?

If they are reporting on your CR's, the last section of your reports should have creditors addresses. If not, call the CRA's and ask for the data furnishers address.