Also check out www.creditboards.com -- there are plenty of exceptions that keep things on for longer or shorter times, plenty of violations (illegal reaging) that can be done to keep things hanging around forever unless you fight (a specialty of Junk Debt Buyers like Sherman, Asset Acceptance, RMA and Arrow), and plenty you can do (legitimately and maybe not so much) to knock things off before 7 years.
Enter "FCRA" into www.Google.com.
Also check out www.creditboards.com -- there are plenty of exceptions that keep things on for longer or shorter times, plenty of violations (illegal reaging) that can be done to keep things hanging around forever unless you fight (a specialty of Junk Debt Buyers like Sherman, Asset Acceptance, RMA and Arrow), and plenty you can do (legitimately and maybe not so much) to knock things off before 7 years.