Collections and 2 charge offs. My score has been around 540 to 560

Quoting REAL PERSON
Hi Bob,
I first wanted to say I appreciate the work you have done with you site. Question my score has been around 540 to 560 for the past 8 months. I have collections and 2 charge offs. 8 months ago I decided to get my credit and life under control. I started paying off the collection. All of the collection company refused to remove
the collection notice when asked. I tried to enroll them with kindness and hoping they would be understanding that we had problem that was out of our control. Did make any difference. I have all of the collection paid off except one. From what I have read it looks like my score will not improved until the collection notice expire even though they state paid on collection zero balance. It seem I have went about it all wrong. I am very discouraged.
By the way, we have not been late on anything for 2 years. I have only 2 trade line open. Car, and house payment. I don't know if student loan qualifies. Any advise?
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To be more complete I would have to adivise people with collections to do more than make payments on collections and THEN ask for removal. Catch collections fast and pay them in one lump sum with penalties and ask for total removal if you complete the payment with a letter you can use to dispute the collection. Most collections only show up after repeated contacts. So when collection hit everyone knows this has been a total lack of payment after prolonged attempts to contact. Add that on top of making payments rather than lump sum. What really looks bad collection is Utilities (phone, eclectric, gas, water, rent) and previous creditors turned over to colections. Hospital stuff usually doesn't hurt as bad other than all people now that hospitals try to set up payments before they send items to colection.

But alas there is a rainbow. You have paid them off. You are making new strides with 2 open trade lines. Your score will follow positive feedback over time.
Hope the collection companies go out of buisiness later and you can dispute them. Always dispute unfamiliar accounts older than 4-5 years in hopes for removal. I assume your collections are not duplicates of another account reporting creditor who could not collect from you. If this is the case I would dispute on
the basis of duplicate accounts.

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