 TITLE: Can a Collection Agency Change an Account’s Open Date? CONTENT: Can a Collection Agency Report an Old Debt as New?\n--------------------------------------------------\nThe open date for a collection account is always going to be more recent than the date the original debt was charged off, but lenders and others reviewing your credit report will know that that new collection entries are related to older debts.\nIt's even possible for a single debt, if uncollected, to lead to more than one collection entry on your credit report. A collection agency that's unsuccessful getting a payment from you can re-sell the debt to another collection agency. If that occurs, you'll see yet another collection entry appear on your credit report, with an even newer open date than the first one.\nWhile the open dates for these collections will vary, they all must retain the delinquency date connected to the original charge-off. The charge-off and all collection entries related to it will disappear from your credit report seven years from that original delinquency date.\nNegative entries in your credit report are never welcome, but it may come as some relief to know that a collection entry (or even multiple entries) related to a given charged-off debt will expire at the same time as the original charge-off, no matter what the open date is on the collection accounts. END