A few years ago I had a collection agency reporting this as a trade line in my credit file as well as in the "collections" section. I disputed this with the credit bureaus and they promptly deleted the accounts. However, it took writing a lot of goodwill letters to the collection agencies and some compromise on my part to get them completely removed from my credit file. The only advice I can give you is to keep plugging away. I had a very tough one that I just got removed Friday May 29th that I've been working on for 5 years. I know that sounds depressing but my score also jumped 65 points. It's worth it.