A misguided belief is that once you stop paying your debts, in six years you return to clean credit. It's six years from the time you settle or pay off the balance. Then the credit companies note your credit report with closed.
If you have paid 80%, talk to the collection manager or the credit card issuer. In canada, they can reduce your debt by 33.3% in attempt to settle it. They may forgive the rest of the balance.
Being an R9 isn't really that bad, because it may have been 5.75 years ago since you messed up or a month ago. between R2-R8 are the worst, it means recently you have messed up and are still messing up as the accounts are still in collection mode.
Any bills you have cleared and it has not been noted on the credit report, write them and request it be reviewed. They will contact the issuer of the funds and see if it has been settled. Then that can boost your credit.
When reviewing your credit, you get the R1-R9 rating, but the banks get a numerical code, if regular payments are being made despite being an R-9 the numerical code will rise, which will tell the bank you are back on the right track.
Get a secured Credit card, generally the interest is higher, there is a yearly fee, BUT if you use it wisely, like maybe just under a thousand limit with just the odd purchase, will also increase your credit score, as you are making regular payments to NEW accounts. Secured being that you make a deposit on the card incase you decide to not pay they can use that towards your balance.
Best of luck!
