Hi, welcome to the forums!
Please read
Credit Scoring 101 , or at least the first post.
Paid collections stay on your reports, and they don't help your score at all. You should try to negotiate a PFD (pay for delete) with the CA. If you open "Frequently Requested Threads", which is stickied at the top of this board, you'll find several threads with examples on how to do a PFD.
* Credit is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. * Who's the boss --you or your credit?
FICO's: EQ 781 - TU 793 - EX 779 (from PSECU) - Done credit hunting; having fun with credit gardening. - EQ 590 on 5/14/2007
