I myself am kind of new, I read a post by "The grand Magistrate" (Tusc) that listed laws, I think it is his credit scoring 101 you'll find at the top of the General Credit Issues page.
http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=ficoscoring&thread.id=2654 Is the link to it It is there or even another link, where he mentions that it does not matter if you pay on a chargeoff or not, it legally is suppose to come off in 7 years from the date its status goes into chargeoff. you will also find in that post "DON'T" try to get 6 or 7 cards at one time. This site also explains that if you apply for cards your CR will suffer short term, so keep that in mind if you are going to try to get a loan for a major purchase.