Nonetheless, start with the CC issuers. Call them, get the payoff amounts, pay and confirm that the payment has been reported.

Hope that you can do this through the CC issuer. Paying less than full through a collection agency is better than not paying at all, but it's a writedown and that's close to as bad as not paying.

With the current cards, be scrupulous about ontime payments for a couple of years and things will start to improve.