The first thing to do when you’re approached by a collection agency to pay off a debt, is to see whether they are correct… This means that you will need to obtain details of the debt from them. Once you have done that, you should check whether you were signed up in a legally binding contract for the product or service that they say that you owed money for. If you feel that there is an error on their part rather than on yours, then you should absolutely dispute this with the credit bureau.   If the collection agency is in their rights, however, the most effective solution to this issue is to pay the amount owed immediately if at all possible.  The reason we say this is not only because it is good and right to do so, but also because in the newest versions of FICO and VantageScore, paid collections don't hurt your score but unpaid collections do. Then, once you have paid the collections, we would suggest that you appeal to the credit bureau, and request for a goodwill deletion, based on your repayment of monies owed. Sometimes it’s possible to pay to have a collection stain deleted from your credit score, but this can come at quite a high cost, which can be particularly difficult to afford, especially if you are already struggling to obtain credit.