Who cares about his credit score at this point. He needs to satisfy those debts asap before he even thinks about worrying about his credit score. When he pays them off he can then work to restore his credit and learn how to become financially responsible so the same thing doesn't happen again. My father got into debt trouble as well and after he paid all his debt off i helped him restore his credit back to high 700's in a little over a year. Its surprisingly quick if you know how to do it. When you have outstanding loans that are still not paid off, it makes it difficult to restore your credit if it is really low which is what im assuming OPs father has. He would be better off focusing on living extremely frugal until ALL the debt is paid off. Then start over with a clean slate.