Although I am sure your intentions were good when you put the accounts for someone else in your name, you have learned the risk of doing so -- now your credit histories are damaged because the person for whom you did the favor did not pay the accounts. Legally, the negative information about the two accounts that are now in collection can remain in your credit histories for seven years and there is nothing you can do to change that or to lessen the damage that information will do to your own finances. One final word of advice, if the two past due accounts have not not already been cancelled for some reason, you should definitely close them right away to prevent additional future problems.