Unpaid cable account and a charged off credit card

 Hi! I recently started looking at my credit reports and noticed that there are a few items that have been recently reported.  A few of the items are from around 2006 and 2007 (unpaid cable account and a charged off credit card), but I recently (2009) had a bank say that I owe around $400 in fees and a SunPass account (for road tolls) showing that I owe them $195.

I have no idea where the SunPass account came from (I had one but to the best of my knowledge it was paid in full), but am responsible for the other accounts.  I want to start cleaning all of this up, but have no idea where to begin.  Other than the credit card charge off, all of the charge offs are from electric and cable companies, a bank (for fees), and a cable company.  Most of the balances are under $100.  I have heard that if I pay off debt that is charged off that it will do nothing to help (and maybe even hurt) my credit scores.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

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you would dispute them first and hope they fall off
then you would legally validate them and hope they fall off
then you would negotiate as much as you can
in the end
having bad debts paid / removed will help your score the most
might hurt it for a year or 2

but your score will go up quickly
IF
you have 3 – 6 lines of open rated (at least 12 months payment activity reported credit bureaus)
accounts like home loans, car loans, credit cards.