Help with my Credit Score

I have a few bad things on there... 2 credit cards that are 120 past due, but I want to settle on those... will settleing on cc debt help the score?

SGQ Processing, a PDL, sent me to NCA collections who have not contacted me or anything is on there, but they are showing on my report for a debt of 400. I live in MN, can this agency collect on me and how do I go about getting this off?

SEC CHECK - that is another PDL I think saying I owe 650 for a bad check and I am not sure where that is coming from either cause I haven't heard from them.

I cleaned up all my PDL mess last May and wanted to start with my 2 CC and be debt free but now I see these other two things.

My current score is 534 (I'm sure it was worse) because once I got out the PDL mess, I started paying my student loans and my other legal collection agency off. How can I improve it?

Settlement with the CC companies would certainly help. If the accounts are still with the original creditors and you can settle with lump sum payment, see if they would agree to 'pay for delete' option. This would remove those negative accounts from your report.

Regarding the pdls.... you can check in the following link if they are legal in your state.

''http://www.commerce.state.mn.us/FSLicensees/il.html"

If the collection companies are reporting illegal pdls to your report you may then need to dispute the issue with the credit bureaus and get those removed. Lesser the number of negative information better would be your score.