The Fair Credit Reporting Act says that negative information should only appear on your credit report for seven years, or ten years for a bankruptcy. If old information still appears on your credit report it's probably because something's gone wrong in the reporting process.
Since negative information can keep you from being approved for credit cards and loans, you should have this outdated information removed. Here are the steps to remove old debts from your credit report. They're mostly the same as removing any other inaccurate information. So if you've disputed something before, getting old debts removed shouldn't be much trouble.
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