Metro 2 Consumer Information Indicator A: Bankruptcy Chapter 7

Specification

Code	A
Meaning	Bankruptcy Chapter 7 - Petition Filed
Field	Consumer Information Indicator (Field 33)
Record	Base Segment
Length / position	2 chars · 217–218
Category	Bankruptcy Petition Filed
CRRG reference	CRRG Exhibit 11 (Consumer Information Indicator)

Reports the FILING, not the outcome. The case may later be discharged, dismissed, or converted to another chapter, and none of those outcomes are implied by A.
Chapter 7 is the liquidation chapter. Non-exempt assets are administered by a trustee and most dischargeable unsecured debt is wiped at discharge.
Per the purging column of the source appendix, the indicator freezes the Date of First Delinquency and the tradeline carries the bankruptcy tag for up to ten years.
It does not zero the balance, close the account, or change the Account Status by itself. Those are separate fields with separate rules.
It is not a substitute for the Compliance Condition Code. A pending bankruptcy and an open FCRA dispute are different conditions in different fields, and one does not populate the other.
This is the code the product runtime emits when a Chapter 7 bankruptcy loan event arrives, which is what makes the chapter-to-code mapping in this set verifiable rather than assumed.

1A bank receives a Chapter 7 notice from the court on an unsecured card with a $4,200 balance and tags the next monthly record with A.
2A credit union learns through its bankruptcy vendor that a member with a 60-month auto loan filed Chapter 7, and reports A while the trustee determines whether the vehicle is exempt.
3A debt buyer holding a purchased consumer receivable is served notice of a Chapter 7 filing and adds A rather than continuing to age the delinquency.
4A retailer's servicing platform receives an automatic-stay notice and tags the account so that collection-oriented reporting stops immediately.

Report A from the cycle you receive notice of the filing, and keep it on the record until the case reaches an outcome that has its own code.
Do not change the Date of First Delinquency after A is applied. The DOFD reflects the original delinquency that started the current sequence, and a bankruptcy never resets it.
Do not report A on a consumer who did not file. On a joint account, the code belongs on the segment that names the filer.
When the Chapter 7 is discharged, move to E. Do not simply leave A in place, and do not blank the field hoping the tag falls off.
If the consumer reaffirmed the debt, R is the accurate code for that condition, not a continued A.

A file can be structurally valid and still be wrong. These are the cross-field conditions Consumer Information Indicator A has to satisfy.

Date of First Delinquency: freeze it. A bankruptcy CII is the strongest signal a validator has that a later DOFD change was a re-aging error rather than a correction.
Account Status keeps reporting the account's real condition. A pending Chapter 7 does not force a paid or closed status, and it does not by itself justify Account Status 13.
Compliance Condition Code is a separate field. Bankruptcy belongs on the CII; the CCC carries dispute and consumer-closure conditions.
On a joint account, the associated consumer's J1 or J2 segment carries its own CII. If only one spouse filed, only that consumer's segment carries A.
Current Balance and Amount Past Due continue to report the amounts actually owed while the case is pending. Zeroing them at filing overstates the effect of the petition.