Is a bad debt erased after 7 years?

No it is NOT! You have to get your credit report to see when the creditor last updated their report to the credit reporting agency. If the creditor chooses to report this bad debt every month than your bad debt will only be erased from the last update. For example: You have a bad debt from a Sears credit card from Jan of 2010. Each month Sears has reported your bad debt to Trans Union or one of the other agencies. The new date is from the last time they updated your credit report NOT from Jan of 2010. They can update it every month for the next 20 years and it will stay as a bad debt and ruin your credit report score. Legal to do it too.