Collections don't just appear on your file because you were unable to pay up a debt to a creditor.
It gets recorded on your report when your creditor has gotten fed up and believes that it'd be more burdensome trying to get you to pay.
Instead, your creditor simply sells the right of ownership to collect the debt to a third party debt-buying agency known as a collector.
When this happens it means the creditor has written off the debt and will therefore place a charge-off on your file as a result.
The debt-buyer will also notify the credit bureaus about this by placing a collection on your file.
What these accounts do to your file is to lower your credit score and reduce your credit-worthiness.
In spite of having a poor rating as a result of collections on your report, there are less rigorous steps you can take to get such bad accounts deleted from your file.
A popular one is to dispute it with the bureau that reported it on your file.
If two of the three bureaus recorded the info on your file, then you dispute it with the two of them, and if all three, Experian, Transunion and Equifax, record the same negative info on your file then you'll have to dispute it with all three of them.
Failure to address the situation with all three of them will not remove anything even if you succeed at deleting the entry from just one of the files provided by one of the bureaus.
Another effective strategy you can use is to take issues head-on with the collector by negotiating the debt and getting them to sign an agreement to delete the entry from your file before paying them.
They'll be more eager to do so if they are assured that they'll get the payment as long as they also keep their part of the deal.
It is best to use a holistic approach of either the self-help or the credit repair agency methods.