Freecreditreport.com Trying to Refute Accounts Details and Repair my Credit Score Internet

After many years of bad decisions, bad spending and poor managing of credit cards, I have a bad credit score (580 as of this posting). I'm taking many steps in directions to repair my score, responsible and frugal spending, paying off bills, paying on time, not bouncing checks, etc.

I'm a paying member of freecreditreport.com ($15/month) for almost a year now, and glad that I am. With my crappy credit score, I need to do everything I can to get it back in the green.

I've fought with collections companies to get settled debts off my credit report successfully by doing the online dispute through freecreditreport.com, so I'm attempting to clean it up even more. I recently submitted a dispute on 2 derogatory accounts that have been closed to try to get them off my report.

I know there is the law that requires most accounts to stay on for 7 years and heavy stuff to remain for 10 years, so I thought I'd try to clean up these two accounts.

Result for account 1: Investigation results reported as "Updated", the account is still listed as derogatory, and there is no change to the report.

Result for account 2: Investigation results reported as "Updated" with a new note on the account saying that it is due for removal in March 2019. ??!! That would be 10 years from...today!

Account 2 (Sears) was opened in 1991, we had money troubles, was late, closed in 2003, turned over to collections company, after much strife (that we brought on ourselves) we paid it off in early 2008 and got it removed from my credit report.

Problem is, the original account with Sears is still on my report - the one that was closed in 2003, and that's the one that they say will be finally removed in 2019.

*** Is this legal? Can they extend a derogatory report that long? It will end up being 16 years from the time it was closed at Sears! ***

Although I'm still generally happy with the web site, this new turn miffs me. Hopefully I can write them a letter and find out what happened and what should actually happen. What kind of letter should I write?

By the way, through monthly updates and monitoring of my credit report, account #1 somehow reappeared on my credit report. I disputed it again with Experian, citing it had already been disputed and paid in full, and they promptly removed it.

Don
San Diego, California
U.S.A.