Hi,
First thing's first, don't rely on Credit Karma for much. They will pull one bureau and show you what that one says. Better to pull all three. You can do this for free by going to www.annualcreditreport.com and going through the steps there. Due to the covid mess, you're able to pull your reports for free once per week. Better to get the actual reports and to get all of them, as some things are not reported to all the bureaus.
Next, you will want to clarify exactly what is on those reports. For example, you posted this:
"Phoenix Recovery Group $2700 (5/2018)
Arcadia Recovery $830 (8/2015) medical (?)
Harris & Harris $810(1/2022) medical (?)
RMP $260 (4/2016) medical
Kinum Inc $96(4/2021)
Kinum Inc $96(4/2021)"
The two with question marks, are they from the same debt? If so, that's been on there quite a while and is set to be falling off of your report in a matter of months. Arcadia Recovery is also not the original creditor, obviously, so the date of 8/2015 might not be the actual date of delinquency, but instead it could be the date it was assigned to them to collect it. That means it might actually already be older than the 7 year limit for reporting. Using Credit Karma doesn't give you correct info all the time about the age of these accounts.
Also, do you recognize all of these as legitimately yours? Harris & Harris has a ton of complaints against them online for trying to collect bills that were already paid, or trying to collect a debt that the consumer never had. They have also been known for continuing to call a third party long after being notified that they have the wrong number. Even people showing them proof of payment, copies of cancelled checks, etc, doesn't seem to stop the calls in those cases.
You also have two identical entries for Kinum, is that correct? If there's really just one account, and they reported it twice, you need to dispute with the CRAs to get the duplicate removed.
Once you have the different accounts sorted out for correctness, you can dispute any that are incorrect. I would definitely not recommend paying a debt you do not actually owe. Do not believe that just because it's reported on your credit that you actually owe it. Make sure. Sometimes, a debt collector goes on a fishing expedition, and tries to collect a debt they have no legal authority to collect. In fact, it happened to me through various entities for over a decade---on a $50+K fake debt that was not owed to anyone, let alone any of the parties that tried. I even got sued twice over it and prevailed both times because the debt collector could not produce any evidence that they had a legal right to collect anything. A third one recently contacted me to try again, at least it's too old to be reported now. I did inform them that under the law they could not report because they threatened to do just that. They are already giving me indications that they are about to run away as well.
From there, you can get to settling or paying off the debts you do owe. Pay for delete has been mentioned, but not all debt collectors do this. You can certainly try, of course, because you never get what you don't ask for.
