You can always first attempt a pay for deletion request, where you make an offer to pay in exchange for their prior agreement to delete derogatory reporting, such as the charge-off, any monthlyy delinquencies, or if you prefer, the entire account.
If they accept, removal of the derogs will help your score, and payment will discharge thte debt.
The peril is that they dont have to accept any PFD concessions, and may take their own actions.
Your requst letter will result in account review by them that may not otherwise have occured at this time.
Is the debt still within SOL?
If willing to pay,, I would contact them and request a PFD.
If they balk, you can still pay.
Payment will move the deck chairs, but wont improve scoring. The current status will no longer show delinquency, but the collection is retained in your file/report, and continues to be included in your payment history scoring unless it is deleted by the creditor.
The possible real benefit may not be in immediate improvment of current score, but rather in the avoidance of an added collection, which could further damage your score.
Additionally, once a debt collector reports, you will have to deal with them.
