No, Congress Did Not Pass a Law That Erases Collections After 2 Years

The video is short and confident. A man in a black T-shirt, a red banner, and a caption: Congress passed a new law (FCRA law) which allows you to permanently remove collections that are older than 2 years old using AI letters. Under it, a list: hospital bills, student loans, car repos, closed accounts, collections, late payments. Thousands of likes. Someone sent it to us and asked if it was real.

It isn't. Not the law, not the two years, not the list. But the reason it spreads is that it sits next to something true, and the true part is worth knowing. So here is the video, exhibit by exhibit, against the actual statute.

Exhibit A: There Is No New Law

The Fair Credit Reporting Act is not new. Congress passed it in 1970. It is the federal law that governs what a credit bureau may keep on your report and for how long, and its time limit on collections has not changed. From 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(4):

[No consumer report may contain] accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss which antedate the report by more than seven years.

Seven. Not two. And the statute says exactly when the seven years start. Under § 1681c(c)(1), the clock begins 180 days after the date of first delinquency, the month you first fell behind and never caught up. Add it up and a collection can lawfully sit on your report for roughly seven and a half years from the day the bill first went unpaid.

As for the "AI Action Plan" in the banner: that is a July 2025 White House policy document about data centers, chips and research. It contains nothing about credit reports, collections or the FCRA. The two were stapled together for the thumbnail.

Fact-checkers took apart this exact claim in 2023, when it circulated the first time. It came back with a new banner.

Exhibit B: The "AI Letters" Are Just Dispute Letters

The letters the video is selling have a real name. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681i, you can dispute any item on your report that you believe is inaccurate, and the bureau must reinvestigate, generally within 30 days, and delete or correct anything it cannot verify. You do this in writing, by mail, for free. It has worked this way since long before anyone put "AI" in a caption.

What a dispute letter cannot do is remove accurate information. No dispute can. The FCRA gives you the right to a correct report, not a clean one. And the bureaus are allowed to set aside disputes they judge frivolous (§ 1681i(a)(3)), which is what often happens to a stack of identical template letters that dispute everything on a report and cite no specific error.

So the honest version of the pitch is this: if an item on your report is wrong, a plain letter fixes it. If it is right, no dispute will, and anyone charging you to try is selling you something.

Exhibit C: The Only Grounds a Dispute Can Stand On

A dispute works when it names a specific inaccuracy the bureau can check. These are the grounds that exist. Notice what is not on the list.

1. It is older than seven years. Count from the date of first delinquency plus 180 days. If that date is more than seven years ago and the item is still there, dispute it as obsolete under § 1681c(a)(4).

2. The dates were moved. If a collector reported a newer delinquency date so the account looks fresh, that is re-aging, and it is a violation. Here is how to check their dates against yours.

3. It is medical and you paid it. The three national bureaus removed paid medical collections in 2022. If a paid medical collection is still on your report, dispute it.

4. It is medical and under $500. Since 2023, the bureaus do not report medical collections under $500, paid or not.

5. It is medical and less than a year old. A medical debt has to be at least 365 days delinquent before it can appear. The rest of the medical-debt picture is here, including the state laws that go further.

6. It is not yours, or the amount is wrong. A duplicate, a balance that does not match the collector's own notice, or an account you never had. Name the specific error and dispute it.

One caution on items 3 through 5: those are the bureaus' own policies, not statutes. The 2025 federal rule that would have gone further was vacated by a court in 2025, and a policy can change. Cite them as what they are, the bureaus' announced practice, and check the current version on the bureau's site before you mail.

Two years is not on the list. Neither is "closed accounts," which are not negative by themselves. An accurate late payment stays for seven years. An accurate repossession stays for seven years. A defaulted student loan has its own rules and none of them say two.

Exhibit D: The Part That Should Make You Nervous

There is a federal law about people who sell credit-report removal. It is the Credit Repair Organizations Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1679 and following, and it says a company that charges you to improve your credit report may not take payment before it has finished the work, must give you a written contract, and must tell you in writing that you can do everything it does yourself, for free.

Read the video's comments and you will find the course, the "AI letter" subscription, the link in bio. If money is asked for up front, that is the practice the law forbids. The Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have sued credit repair sellers for exactly this, and the pattern in those cases is the same every time: template disputes, upfront fees, and results that reverse when the bureau re-verifies the item.

How to Do It Yourself, Free

Pull all three reports. AnnualCreditReport.com gives you a free report from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion every week. Use that site, not the bureaus' own sign-up pages.

Find the specific error. Not "I want this gone." Which item, which field, what it says, what it should say. The date of first delinquency and the balance are the two fields most often wrong on a collection.

Write to the bureau, on paper. Name the item as it appears, state the specific inaccuracy, ask for a reinvestigation under § 1681i and for deletion if it cannot be verified, and ask for the written results. Enclose a copy of the report page with the item marked and a copy of your ID and proof of address. Send it by mail with tracking and keep a copy. Never send originals, and never send anything to a "dispute service" that asks for your Social Security number and a fee.

Write to the collector too. If the item is a collection, the company reporting it is the furnisher, and under § 1681s-2(a)(8) you can dispute directly with them as well. If they are still collecting, a Debt Validation Letter demands verification, and the law requires them to stop collecting until they mail it. Compare the dates on anything they send against your own records.

The Bottom Line

The video gets one thing right: you can dispute a collection with a letter, and you do not need to pay anyone to write it. Everything else in it is invented. There is no new law, there is no two-year rule, and no dispute of any kind removes an accurate entry.

What BillFighter does, and what it doesn't. BillFighter fights the bill. It reads your medical bill or collection notice, points out what is worth questioning, and prepares the Debt Validation Letter and the Request Itemized Bill that you send by certified mail. We are not a credit repair service and we do not dispute credit reports. The bureau disputes on this page are ones you file yourself, free, directly with the bureaus. We are not a law firm and this is not legal advice.

If the collector cannot prove the debt, that is the fight worth having, and it is the one we help with. Check my notice, free →

Seven years, not two. Correct, not clean. Free, not a course.