Thank you for your quick response. Your thoroughness in answering my questions is very much appreciated.

Settling your accounts with Amex will NOT resurrect them onto a Credit Report. Once an account is purged from a Credit Report whether it be a tradeline, collection account, judgment, credit counselling, consumer proposal or a bankruptcy, it will never re-appear again, regardless of whether you make any payments on the account or not. It's like water over the dam...............gone forever.

Recently, I wrote a letter addressed to both legal departments of Equifax and TransUnion requesting a definition of what constitutes an "activity" and more specifically what constitutes a "date of last activity". Because I am not a member of either Credit Bureau and paying their ridiculous fees, I was considered an "irritant" to their daily operations. As there is no legal requirement under the Ontario Consumer Reporting Act to respond to a consumer's request for information in order that a consumer can more intelligently interpret a Credit Report, both Equifax and TransUnion chose to ignore me. In fact, it is common practice with both Equifax and TransUnion to respond to consumer's request for information regarding their Credit Report with a "boilerplate" letter spewing a lot of irrelevant and totally useless information about their operations ( more commonly referred to as "crap" ) which has absolutely nothing to do with the consumer's inquiry. And so, it comes as no great surprise that I did not receive an answer to my questions. Having said that, from what I have read, heard, observed and what members have posted on this website, it appears that either a charge or a payment constitutes an "activity" and the last activity recorded constitutes a "date of last activity" If a "tradeline" also appears as a collection account, the "date of last activity" should be identical on both listings. What happens in many cases, is that when an account has been assigned to a collection agency or sold to a debt buyer, the "date of last activity" is different. The date shown on the collection account typically represents the date the collection agency was assigned the debt to collect or the date the debt buyer purchased the account. You have to watch for this very carefully. If this occurs, it must be corrected, otherwise it will extend the purge date of the collection account. Also, when a debt has been written off by the original creditor or sold to a collection agency or a debt buyer and a payment is later made on this account, this does NOT re-set or extend the "date of last activity". If it did, debtor's would refuse to make any further payments or negotiate a settlement of their account knowing that by doing so, it would only reset the "date pf last activity" and thereby extend the purge date.

Tradeline accounts are revolving accounts. That is why both MBNA and BMO are shown as R7. R = revolving and 7 = credit counselling or a consumer proposal. The best rating that you can have is a R1. This means that your account is up to date and paid as agreed. R9 is an account written off, bad debt or a bankruptcy.

Equifax's POLICY is that all Credit Counselling accounts will purge 3 years from the date the program was completed. TransUnion's POLICY is that all Credit Counselling accounts will purge 2 years from the date the program was completed.

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Educating one Consumer at a time

Apologies for the confusing post. To make my post simpler and more clearer I guess two things I want to know are:

1. If I should contact the collection agency that has recently contacted me about the 2 AMEX accounts and go ahead and settle with them? Both of the AMEX accounts are no longer on my credit report. Would settling them bring them back on my credit report?

2. What is the definition of last date of activity for both trans union and equifax in order to determine the purge period.

I have answered the questions below anyway..

1. Which cards were paid through credit counselling?
MBNA and BMO.

2. When did the credit counselling begin ( i.e. when did the first payments begin through the debt management plan ) and when was this reported to the creditors as well as the credit bureau?
First started the program in Spring 2004. I believe it was reported to the creditors that I was on the program because I stopped receiving collection calls.

3. When was the credit counselling suspended when you returned to school?
In 2005.

4. When was the credit counselling re-activated again after your obtained full employment?
In 2009. (correction to the earlier post; those credit cards that were paid off through credit couselling service were paid off in Jan 2010 and NOT Jan 2009).

5. What was the term of the debt management plan? 5 years?
Five years initially, and 1 year when it was re-activated.

6. What happened to the CIBC credit card during this period? Were any payments made on this card prior to it being settled in 2009?
When I re-activated the debt management program, CIBC did not agree to re-open so I called and settled myself with the collection agency. And yes, payments were made to CIBC but only before I suspended the program in 2005.

7. What accounts, if any, are currently showing on your Credit Report?
MBNA - R7 "paid through credit couselling"
BMO - R7 "paid through credit couselling"
A few other but they are all positive accounts

8. Do they show as a Tradeline, collection account or as credit counselling?
No collection accounts are shown. Only MBNA and BMO accounts have comments as mentioned in #7 above. Tradeline accounts -- is that the same thing as revolving accounts?

9. What is shown as "date of last activity"
I will have to update you on this a little later as I can't seem to retrieve my report at the moment to give you the exact dates. However, as per the 2 year purge rule, both MBNA and BMO will fall off the transunion report on Jan 2012. Does the same rule apply to equifax report?

Your post is somewhat confusing and needs further clarification

You said that all 5 credit cards were cancelled in mid 2004 and that you began paying them off through credit counselling. You go on to say that the two Amex cards were not included in the credit counselling because the credit counselling was unable to track them down. You further state that you setled your CIBC credit card in 2009.

My questions are as follows:

1. Which cards were paid through credit counselling?
2. When did the credit counselling begin ( i.e. when did the first payments begin through the debt management plan ) and when was this reported to the creditors as well as the credit bureau?
3. When was the credit counselling suspended when you returned to school?
4. When was the credit counselling re-activated again after your obtained full employment?
5. What was the term of the debt management plan? 5 years?
6. What happened to the CIBC credit card during this period? Were any payments made on this card prior to it being settled in 2009?
7. What accounts, if any, are currently showing on your Credit Report?
8. Do they show as a Tradeline, collection account or as credit counselling?
9. What is shown as "date of last activity"

If you can respond to these questions, perhaps I can get a better handle on your situation.

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Educating one Consumer at a time

Hi, this is my first post and need some advice about two of concerns listed below.

Brief summary of the situation:
I had 5 credit cards back in early 2000 and were all canceled by mid 2004 the latest as I was unable to pay them off due to financial hardship. Since, then I was paying them of through credit counseling but by 2005 I was started studying again and had no income to pay through credit counseling either. Anyway, since 2008 I have had a full time job and my financial situation is much better with a consistent salary, I have managed to pay off (MBNA and BMO) through credit counseling as of Jan 2009 and settled 1 credit card (CIBC) as of 2009 also. The remaining two (both AMEX) I haven't yet paid off as the credit counseling wasn't able to track them down. (QuestI ignored it until recently i have been contacted by a collection agency about them.

Question/Concern 1: Regarding the two AMEX accounts
I owe about 2200 on one 'AMEX1 ' account and 1500 on the 'AMEX2' account. Both accounts have fallen off the credit report so is it advisable to pay both accounts off through a settlement? The collection agency has approached me with a settlement offer of $850 for AMEX1 account and nothing for AMEX2 account (yet). If i settle both, are they going to reappear on my credit report?

Question/Concern 2: Regarding the MBNA and BMO accounts.
I paid off completely balances on both MBNA and BMO accounts as of Jan 2009. Both accounts according to the purge rule would fall off by Jan 2012; however, they both should already be off the report just like my AMEX accounts above. This is because I failed on all credit cards at the same time. I know that trans union says that the purge period begins from the first default date and MBNA shows a default date of Oct 2008. I know that i stopped paying and started getting calls from collection agencies back in 2004. I stopped paying BMO also but never really got a call from collection agency. I called and filed an investigation into this date but trans union said they can't investigate this and have to follow whatever the company in question reports it as. So, I called MBNA and they told me that they have no proper record except that a call log showing calls were being made to me back in 2004 about making payments as I was no longer paying them. They also said that they sold off the debt to agency in 2006 and then again in 2008. Basically they weren't making sense. How can you sold of a debt that you no longer have? Anyway, the real question is that what is the definition of default date? Is it not the date that you are consistenly over due in payments? Was this affected by the fact I went on to pay them through credit counseling in 2005? If so, then why are AMEX accounts off the report? I have called MBNA and they are not cooperating and trnas union, frankly, don't investigate any thing. Please advise on how I can get these removed from my credit report as both clearly have been defaulted for over 6 years. Even my CIBC account is off the report!
Side note: both MBNA and BMO show an R7 rating and a note "paid through credit counseling" on my report.

Any help on these matters is greatly appreciated!