Here is how I would advise you to sort out all of the "accounts" in your credit report, for some are chocolate, and some are vanilla. Some arre accounts with you, and some are not. Bear with me.
YOU only have a personal, legal "account" with the original creditor. Never with a CA. If you go delinquent on payment terms with the OC, they wlll report a 30-day late. Then, maybe a 60, 90, 120 late, if delinquenciies progress.. These are reported derogs on YOUR account with them under the FCRA.
The OC may come to the point where they decide to "charge off" the debt, which they do for internal IRS tax benefits, and then post that to your credit report.
When an OC charges off an account, they can then do one of two things. They can retain legal owership of the debt, and just assign further collection of the upaid debt to a third party collection agency for activities to collect the debt o thier behalf, at which point you can still talk to the OC, if they are willing to chat, to satisfy the debt.
Or, they can divorce themselves totally from the debt, and just sell it ouright to a third party CA,
Where you normally see this in you CR is when the OC reports a zero balance on the OC account. That does not mean the debt is gone, what is normally means is that they have sold it to a third party, and are not longer anyone you can contact to discuss the debt, for it is no longer theirs. So now you have to deal witth the CA, with no recourse to settling with the OC.
I could not tell from your post as to whether each accunt was an OC or CA account. I am sorry for the long-winded response, but simple responses are often misleading.
I would match the objective advice from those on this site against any profiteering advice that you could obtan from any credit repair organization any day of the year.
