Definitely get up to speed on these boards before you take action. A week before I found MyFICO I paid two small collections. I used what I learned on MyFICO to get rid of all my other baddies and to obtain and use new credit in a way that would best help my score. As my score rose, my situation improved exponentially. Now today, those two collections, although paid, are the ony baddies on my reports. Had I found MyFICO a week earlier, I would have had a good chance at PFD on them and they'd be gone. I learned here that one of those agencies were very open to PFD deals. Now they are not interested in GW letters.
You can check your general situation, specific creditors, find sample letters, get contact info including email addresses and phone numbers and plan next steps no matter what your current situation. Over the past year and a half, I've logged into these boards thousands of times. There's a goldmine of info and supportive people here.
EDIT: Checked my stats. I've logged on over 1250 times and read over 119,000 messages.
