Many people look to credit scores as the end-all/be-all of financial health and believe once something is on your credit, it is there forever. This is not always the case. Even bankruptcy, which has one of the longest shelf lives of any kind of debt, drops off after seven years. However, this is not always true in practice. Faulty computer programming, erroneous coding, and other technical issues can lead to “phantom debt” or “zombie debt” showing up on your credit report years after the issue should have been resolved. If you find information on your credit report that is no longer accurate, each of the major credit reporting bureaus and all major banks have procedures you can follow to report errors, omissions, or factual problems with your credit statement. In some cases, your credit report will have a table of contents that tells you exactly where to find this information, so you can get to it quickly.