Trying to clean up my debt

First of all you have arrived at the best place. Welcome. The first thing you need to do is speak with the counsellor who will contact you because you signed up here. If you did not request counselling I would suggest that you go to the free consultation link on the side of this page. The you should send a debt validation letter to any collection agencies that you are dealing with. You will find a good one though cajunbulldogs home page. The agencies are rquired to resond to this letter under the Fair Debt Collections Act. The start challenging anything on your credit reports that you feel is inaccuarate. You can do this yourself or hire a compny to do it for you. But beware! There are a great many out there who will take your money and do nothing.
To start rebuilding your credit get rid of any high interest credit cards you have. Get a secured card from a bank and pay the entire balance early. This will put some positive input into you credit report while you are try to remove the negative. Stay away from payday loans. I can't stress that enough.

Read some tips here on how credit scores can be improved. Have you called the companies to inquire about your debt accounts?

While dealing with the collection agencies, be sure to get the debt validated in writing. You will be sure of paying to the right company. There are many companies who do not own the debt accounts but still do unauthorized reporting. If you don????????t get the specifics, ask them to remove their reporting from your credit report. Your credit scores are getting hurt for wrong reasons.

I have found that looking at my credit report, the remarks that the creditor put in on you say that they put your credit card account as a loss of money to them . How is it that you have paid off the balance in full . I feel that the remarks on my credit report are hurting my credit score. Also how long once you have paid off these accounts that have gone to collections, and were considered as charge offs but yet were paid off full amounts . Once you have paid them off do they stay on your report for some time , or can you get them off right away once the creditor has been informed by you that they were paid off in full

I actually have found that you get more accomplished with a debt consolidation company than trying to negotiate on your own. I had a Discover card and they told me that they would not negotiate with me. I would have to have a company call on my behalf. When the company finally did call, they cut my balance by 40%, eliminated my late fees, and talked down my interest rate. I have to pay them a monthly fee, but it looks like it's more than worth it. I write one check to pay all of my bills and I saved a boat-load of money on my debt. I used Link removed per TOS rules, by Shazzers. Good luck!