This is really messing up borrowers though... if I saw a CR that showed a missed or late payment and then no further reporting after that, I would assume the account is a dq. I might assume the company went out of business right after reporting non-payment, so the deadbeat got away with it.
Even an account that shows paid, if the lender hasn't been reporting every month, I will assume has a problem. At the least, a borrower shouldn't be dealing with a slimy company that only reports every few months. Every one of my loans, credit cards, and other obligations report EVERY SINGLE MONTH. In fact, last time I had a change of address, all my creditors knew it before I even contacted them... I reported the change to one lender (Citibank) who put it into my CR, and within TWO DAYS I was getting notices from other companies wanting to either verify my address, or with instructions on how to access my account and provide an address correction.