I might be in over my head.....

Ok...here's the deal....I have 3 credit cards with Chase (I know I know)....all three were maxed at their limits of 5k, 3k, and 1k....I stopped making payments on them as I had a loan from my brother that I had to pay back to him and that is part of how I got into this situation....I will be making final payment to my brother mid September and decided to stop ignoring the phone calls and contact Chase this morning to make some sort of arrangements....as it turns out, 2 of the 3 cards have been sent to collections and Chase will not even deal with me about them.....I did some poking around the web and this seems to be the case.....the one account that didn't go to collections I approved a payment of $74 on August 31 (which I really can't afford either but will make it somehow).....I've been reading some and am going to send off DV letters to the two collection agencies tomorrow morning.....that should buy me some time while I try and figure out what to do next.....I have 5 other lines of credit with other CCs that add up to about 10k.....I'm just wondering if I should try a debt settlement company or to try and do it on my own.....I no longer even use any of the 5 current cards and didn't even validate the replacement cards when the old one expired.....just been paying the minimum due.....although I might be a good candidate for bankruptcy I would rather not go that route and I do believe I owe these banks the majority of the money for service and merchandise I purchased......could someone suggest a good debt settlement company that I could work with in New York......I've been reading alot of the posts in the forums and would just like some more input as I continue to read.....any help will be greatly appreciated......

Tracy