6 months? Try 3 - 4 months. Once it hits the 5 it just means it is about to hit the R9. After the third month its quite common to be at R5 and in collections by the 4th month of delinquency, creditors want to be the 1st one paid if other creditors are owed.

There is no standard though because every creditor is different. Amex for instance has written off debts for payments missed by a few days. They technically can do this but of course it upset their cardholders to no end because they lose all of their points saved on the card when it is written off.

You owe CIBC?? Change your bank account that any money could go into. They enact their right to "offset" bank accounts at CIBC for "customers" who are delinquent. Meaning they will go into your account daily to look for money to take to make a payment to your CIBC debt. So use a different bank that they wouldn't have access too.

You are right, they are blowing smoke.

It wont go to an R9 until they charge off and send it to a 3rd party. 6 months is the standard timeframe before that happens so it will go R2 R3 etc first.

I've lost my primary source of income. I am now behind on my CIBC Visa by 35 days. The bank called me and said that if they did not receive payment in 1 week, my account would be sent to collections and I would get an R9 rating immediately.

How common is it to be sent to collections so quickly? I have never missed a payment in my 14 year credit history. I thought that I would be downgraded to R2-R3-R4 over a period of months, not to R9 overnight.