<prompt> Human: I owe 602 on an old Credit Card bill and the agency for that is Portfolio Recovery Associates, and 358 on an old Medical bill to Choice Recovery. Neither entity is seemingly able to remove derogatory information from my credit history but they both claim theyll report the debt as paidclosed.If theres no removal of derogatory marks, is there any point in even paying these?Im a credit newb recently motivated to fix my credit score, any constructive input is welcome.  <response>: If 602 and 358 is what you owe call them up and explain that you have some kind of BS hardship they hear it every day but you want to make good and settle and then offer them 20 of the total for a pay for delete off of your credit report. So if you owe 602, offer them 602 X .20 120. What they will do is either accept that offer, or they will counter offer. They will usually counter back at 50 of the total debt owed 300 or so. After that, you come up a little bit, come up to maybe 25 and again you want to embellish on your hardship. Portfolio will absolutely do a pay for delete. My wife and I just bought a house, she owed them about 10,800 and the debt was just shy of 6 years old. We settled at 3300, got a letter from them that they would accept payment for a deletion first, and then fired off the check. What also helps is if you dont do the negotiating yourself. Call up and tell them youve given power of attorney to say your dad or mom, and have them take over for you. Its much easier to negotiate the outcome you want when you are not the one actually doing the negotiating. Whatever you do you have to be firm on the point that they the collection agency can have 20 or so of the debt paid back today with today being the key word, even though it will take a few days to negotiate back and forth or they can have 100 of nothing. 