Unpaid collections and a judgment with huge interest

We are trying to currently fix our credit on our own and its a never ending battle but we got our score up to about 660, which is better than the 559 it was about 3 years ago. We have 2 questions that we cant seem to find an answer to.
1. we have several accounts that show UNPAID that are for the same debt but 2 different collections companies are reporting them. Can they do this? If not how do we get the older one removed?
2. We had a $1400 judgement almost 7 years ago. We have paid $10 a month for the last 3 years with no writted agreements to the collection agency on anything. We just gave them something because they tried to garnish her wages 3 years ago and this made them not pursue that. We assumed after all these years that the balance would be managable to pay off now but we called to get the balance today and now its over $1700. We never signed nor agreed to pay any kind of interest. Can they do this and what do we do now?
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#1 use the debt validation form and get at least on or both collections removed in most cases.
yes they can they did. is it right moral and just. Porbably not. But not paying isn't either. If one validates the debt then negotiate and pay the debt as fast as possible IF YOU CAN.

#2 of course there will be interest. The bad news is you validated the debt. The good news is many times when a creditor accpets a partial payment they usually cannot take you to court. The bad news is you have already been to court. So I don't really know what the answer to court ordered payments might be. Your in a fix here and I am not sure what to tell you other than to try to negotiate a payment in full now if they drop interest.
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