Several years ago I bit off more than I could chew and had 3 major credit cards(Discover, Cap1 and MBNA) To make a long story short, they were all charged off about 5 years ago. I was going through a rough patch in my life and accrued some other miscellaneous debts like a $1000 cell phone bill and a couple of utility bills, which were charged off as well. I looked at my credit score and report today and have roughly a 520 score from all 3 bureaus. With the Discover card, it is still reporting as of Jan 2010 and has about a 9k balance. They filed a judgment against me in 5/2007. Capital One and MBNA are basically the same story with charged off balances of 8k and 4k respectively and are still reporting. On the positive side, I have several accounts that were paid as agreed in the past, other credit cards, car loans, etc. Never a home owner. I currently have a secured credit card with a 200 limit that I use here and there, never late on and I just got an unsecured credit card from HSBC with a 300 limit which I will do the same with. My questions are: How long are these creditors(the charged off accounts) going to keep reporting? As long as I have these delinquent accounts, am I doing myself any good by getting new credit established with these new small limit cards or will the charge offs overshadow the good things I am currently trying to do? I am not able to pay these charged off accounts off and probably plan to never do so unless I come upon a large sum of money. I have considered filing bankruptcy just to clean the slate and start over. What would be my quickest and best course of action for getting good credit?