"Credit repair" companies are nothing more than predatory. They have no special powers or inside connections to do anything special for you. Anything they can do, you can do yourself... for free.
Not all, but many collection agencies offer PFD. The charge off and repo notations will likely stay on your reports for 7 years based on the DOFD (date of first default) that led to the charge off, or repo. Some people have had success with goodwill removal campaigns but most don't. Disputing accurate information is strongly discouraged as it often has negative consequences.
Without knowing specifics of what you owe, and what type of accounts are charged off, here's some guidelines
- Any revolving credit line with a remaining balance has a negative impact on your utilization until those accounts are paid/settled to a zero balance.
- Once these accounts are paid/settled for less this will help your scores.
- Once they are paid/settled, they will also stop reporting the CO status monthly, this will help your scores start to recover.
- Once they are paid/settled, this also eliminates the possibility of them suing you.
- The more time that passes from when they stop reporting monthly, the more your scores will improve, BUT, your scores wont fully recover until ALL adverse information falls off.
- Disputing accurate information where the reporting has gone dormant can cause the reporting to update. Scoring algorithms will see it as a more recent event and further ding your scores.
- Adding more positive accounts will not offset the negative reporting. Frequent credit seeking will only set you back.
In addition to the above, the best thing you can do with the new accounts you have is to obviously use your new cards responsibly, and pay the card balances in full every month. The other thing is to allow time to do it's thing. There's a lot of useful information, advice and success stories in the "Rebuilding your credit" board. Set some time aside and read through the posts there.
If you have questions about your specific situation, the more details you can provide, the more specific advice you'll get.
