Hi Laura,
By law, everything on your credit report must be accurate, complete and verifiable. Thus if you authorized the information to be reported on your Equifax or TransUnion credit report, it can stay on there for 6 years. That's the amount of time that credit bureaus are allowed to report something.

If however the information is not authorized, is inaccurate or incomplete it must be fixed or deleted within a reasonable amount of time. (I hate the word reasonable)

You would have to check out the "Credit Reporting Act" or similar in your province to know what the regulations say about how long credit bureaus can keep your information on file.

Bankruptcies can stay on for 7 years, and double bankruptcies (you declared bankruptcy twice) can stay on for up to 14 years in some provinces of Canada.

The reason credit info stays on your report for six year is to give creditors a reasonable credit history.

The longer the time lapsed, the less relevant the history becomes to your current situation.

Monty, if that was in 2001 wouldn't it now be a Stats barred? and how would you approach the Credit Bureau's to remove that from you report if it was a "stats" barred, and if it is stats barred does it go on your Credit report?

Hi Deb,
You need to give creditors permission to have collection agencies collect you. You also need to give them permission to put things on your credit bureaus. SEE Privacy Commission PIPEDA.

It's all about giving permission to companies to COLLECT and/or DISCLOSE your personal information.

I can't imagine that on the contract with the video store that they got your permission to do a credit bureau check. Please let me know if this is the case.

The creditor can pass your personal information to a collection agency by definition, however that doesn't mean the collection agency can collect you. You have to give the creditor permission for that, and subsequently the creditor has to give the collection agency permission to collect you.

IMPORTANTLY, if you did not give permission for the creditor to disclose your information to TransUnion, the collection agency won't have that permission either. You need to complain to the Privacy Commission that these companies are disclosing your personal information to a credit bureau without your written consent.

There are no laws stating that you have to deal with a collection agency. As such they can only deal with you with the permission you gave them on your original credit contract.

Let us know how it goes.

Monty Loree

I am hoping for a little help with this one.

It's a different story if you don't pay your car loan, student loan or whatever and it goes to collection, because usually you had to ignore some notices before, but recently I found out that a video store took me to collection, actually two for all things, but late fees. One store was $4 and the other $60, the $4 was likely mine but the $60 was my ex who used the account after I left. We were still friends though. I mean who really thinks about things like this when you move.

So I found out about it because it was on my TransUnion, so I did manage to find out who and what it was for and I requested a copy of the membership agreement that arrived today. It's a basic application with name, CC and drivers license and a list as to who also can use the account, then it says that all late fees and non returned items will be charged to my CC, and that I must abide by store policies. That was it. No listing of actually what store policies are. Definitly nothing about my information going to a third party or a collection agency. Anyway this was in 2001 and placed on my credit file in 2005. And a very lousy attempt at contact.

So what should I do about it? I will pay the video store once the collection is expunged. Should I just go straight to a lawyer about it, or write to the video store and collection agency and let them know that they are violating my rights and deal with this.