discussion title:
Credit rpts - how long 2 show improvemnt
message #:
7826.2 in response to 7826.1
Credit accounts with negative history will remain on your credit reports for 7 years. If you were chronic in being late or delinquent it will be reported in the month it occurred and remain there for 7 years. So let's say you had a rough patch that resulted in bad history but followed that with good credit (paying on time is the single best thing you can do to earn good credit), then the new credit will be reported month after month and eventually, in the fullness of time, the old bad credit history will fall off your report. The older the bad credit gets the less it hurts you.
Example: In September of 2003 you were unemployed and got behind on a credit card. September of 2003 you were late on your credit card payment and it hit your credit report as a negative. In October 2003 you found another job, the October 2003 payment was not late from that point on your payments were on time. All good history. Seven years from September 2003 is September 2010 and from that point on the last bad entry from 2003 falls off your credit report. Sometimes it's 7 years and 1 month or 2 months. The point is after October 2010 that negative entry aged and fell off your credit report.
Does that make sense?
Carolyn
