ER Solutions causing me problems, in California

[taylorjp]

I don't check my credit report as often as I should, but I was recently turned down for a Discover card so I decided to take advantage of my free report and check into why. To my suprise I found an outstanding collection being reported by ER Solutions, the collection is from a bank account I had back in 1998-99 which I had completely forgotten about and admittedly I had left in an overdrawn state. Yes very stupid on my part. The odd thing is this account was not being reported two years ago when my wife and I purchased our home, it appears that ER started reporting it in December of '05, they also appear to be claiming the initial date of the delenquency was in 2003, I no longer have records of this account to prove it but the initial deleqency had to have been in 1999. My question is if the statute of limitations has passed does that mean they are required to stop reporting this debt? Am I better off just paying this off? I am in much better financial shape now and would have no problem doing that, but, would I be able to strike a deal with ER that if I paid they remove it from my report? My wife and I are looking to refinance our home and I would like to have this item removed from my credit report before we start shopping for loans. Any advice would be greatly apprieciated.

[aaron]

Dispute the debt with the credit reporting agency.

The statute of limitations doesn't affect their right to report the debt, but the age of the debt does. If the last action on the account occurred as long ago as you state, the "seven years plus six months" period during which it may be reported should have expired (or should be about to expire), whereas a debt from 2003 would stay on your report for several more years.