Multiple questions-
1) When reporting a fully charged off loan to the credit bureaus, do you report the charged off amount as "current balance", "past due balance", and "original charged off amount"?

2) After the initial reporting of the charged off account to the credit bureaus, do you continue to report the account to the credit bureaus each reporting cycle?

3) If the answer to question #2 is yes, when do you stop reporting the account? And does the "current balance" ever change?

Our core processor has made a recent change to include lost interest, late charges, etc. in the "current balance" that is reported to the credit bureaus. Since the core is set to calculate lost interest in the background on charged off accounts, a charged off account's "current balance" will now increase each month (due to the lost interest, etc.) and that increasing "current balance" will be reported to the bureaus. The "original charged off amount" will not change though.

Any input would be GREATLY appreciated!

34. Questions: Charge-offs: (a) How should charged off accounts be reported?

Answer: Report the following Base Segment fields:
• Scheduled Monthly Payment Amount = zero
• Account Status = 97 (Unpaid balance reported as a loss – charge-off)
• Current Balance and Amount Past Due = outstanding balance amount, which may include fees and interest. If payments are made by the consumer, report the declining balance in these two fields.
• Original Charge-off Amount = the original amount charged to loss, regardless of the declining balance. This field should not be changed.
• FCRA Compliance/Date of First Delinquency = the date of the first delinquency that led to the account being charged off
• Date Closed = For Installment and Mortgage accounts (Portfolio Types I and M), zero fill. For Revolving, Open and Line of Credit accounts (Portfolio Types R, O and C), if the account is closed, report the date the account was closed to further purchases. Otherwise, zero fill.
• Date of Last Payment = date of the consumer’s most recent payment

Note: If the deficiency balance is being charged off for accounting and general ledger purposes only, do not report the account as a charge off. Deduct the charged off amount from the Current Balance of the ongoing account.

Thanks!