Credit Advice

first a 'professional' is a waste of money, they cant do anything for you, that you cant do for your self, and the money you spend on the'professional' is money you couldve spent on your balances... second, anything older than 7 years, unless its a federal lien or judgement of some sort, is more than likely past the statute of limitiations ( check with your local BBB chapter or dept of consumer affairs) and should be taken off your credit. if it does already fall off on its own... Have you pulled your credit files from all 3 bureaus? if you havent then I wold start with that to see exactly what you're dealing with, before you do anything... as for items past due and in collections... do not deal with colections agencies at all, not once. do not even answer the phone when they call... by doing so you risk the debt they are after you for, being 'reaged' and put back on your credit file as a 'new debt' when in fact, it may be several years old, and about ready to fall off your credit. when you get your credit files them look over every line and highlight whatever isnt yours or is older than five years from the date of last acitivity... these are the lines you are most likely going to hear fro a collector about, simly becasue they are getting close to the statute date, and  colectors are gonna be pushing to make contact with you, so they can get on you about paying money the original creditor has already written off as bad debt... while you are working on that much, then take time to look around online consumer sites like CK to find out how others have handled similar debt problems... for example I was able to walkaway from 50K in student loans simply because I had not realized my attorney had listed it in an earlier bankrupcy... that was one of my mistakes, was filing a BK without fully researching it beforehand... i do not recommend filing BK unless you are on the verge of being sued and even then I wouldnt do a thing w/o calling at least 3 BK attys first and discussing everything with them... work on educating yourself, and keeping your money in your pocket before going after a proffessional you dont really need...