<prompt> Human: Okay so Ive had some recent hiccups in life and for about 6 mo I havent been able to pay my cc bill to Best Buy or one other healthcare bill over a year old on the healthcare bill. The Best Buy card and healthcare bill are now in collections. Here is my question: I have the money now in my checking account to pay both of them off in full not using a settlement from a debt collector, and im only saying this here and not to the CA :-P BEFORE I pay, what is the best way to handle this? I would like to do a Pay for Delete but I also know that the CA doesnt have to honor this. So what should my first step should be? Pay them then worry about cleaning my credit report?Thanks in advance.  <response>: There is no magic to make a bad credit event disappear. The credit bureaus have to report what actually happened. You didnt pay your bills. You will sooner or later get some dings on your credit.OK, but now what? If you pay the bill in full, that looks better on the credit report, than settling for less than the full amount. But still not perfect.On the third hand, many many collections agencies will treat you like dirt and lie to you about what they can do, what they will do, etc.So, here are the rules to get this settled so you can move on.:1. NEVER give them electronic access to your bank accounts. They will give you 27 reasons why this is the only way they can do a deal. They are lying.2. If you dont get it in writing, whatever deal you thought you had with them suddenly wont matter. They will come back and harass you for more money, and you wont have a shred of proof to make them go away.Thus, negotiate your best deal with the collection agency to settle the debt in full.. They might take 30 cents on the dollar. They might take 50 cents on the dollar. They might take a 2,000 debt and blow it up to 3,500 with bogus interest and penalty costs. This will take 12 phone calls and 20 pounds of angst to get done. Its all just psychological warfare to them.Whatever deal you arrive at, get it in writing and then send them a cashiers check overnight to seal the deal. Keep their written agreement and a copy of the cashiers check for the rest of your life, because this debt can come back to haunt you again, even though you settled it. They might sell the debt to another collection agency. Because they are just that classy and honest.troy 