Student Loan Negotiations?

Status
Not open for further replies.
A

alexa7

Banned Not
Apr 7, 2008
500
2
0
Hey guys.

My wife has a defaulted student loan from before we were married. She was enrolled in one of those stupid beauty colleges and dropped out after only about a fourth of the term.

The principle was about $2800. Now, after years of default and no payments made, the amount being collected is $18,000.

I understand negotiations are tough, but has anyone ever negotiated the loan down for a settlement. We just want to get some of those collections costs taken off, not even remotely dip into the principal.

Any experience here by anyone?

Thanks.
 


Is the loan backed by the government or a private company?

Is the account with the original creditor or with a collections company?

I'd offer them $1,500 for a lump sum settlement if it is with a collections firm.
 
theNOTO said:
Is the loan backed by the government or a private company?

Is the account with the original creditor or with a collections company?

I'd offer them $1,500 for a lump sum settlement if it is with a collections firm.
Click to expand...

I don't have the papers in front of me here at work, but the DOE sends letters occasionally. It has changed collection agency hands a number of times.
 
This is in no way legal advice.
If this i not government secured and I was you this is what I would do. First, pull a credit report on your wife, then I would send a dispute letter to all three reporting agency's. The creditor has exactly 90 days to supply validation of the debt if they don't it is taken off your credit report. Therefore your wife owes them nothing.
Then when you make contact with the collection agency they will ask you a ton of questions that make it sound like they know everything. Aka where your wife works blah blah blah. They don't and don't tell them. they have a lexis report and a credit report in front of them. Refuse all info that they ask. You have 1 purpose in this call. That is to get there address and or fax.
Next, send them a letter of dispute. also include that you are putting them on notice and to only correspond with you via mail. In the event that they do call you after this letter is sent it is a 1000.00 fine per infraction Now in three to six months if they can find it they will send you validation of the debt.
If they do send you validation of the debt this is where the negotiation comes into play. have in front of you the original debt and a list of he bogus charges and 32% interest rates and what not.
When you call them to talk about the settlement if needed. If you want the best rate you will wait until 3 days before the end of the month. they will give you some bogus 65% or something like that offer 25%. Bill collectors work on commission and have numbers to meet. If they are having a horrible month aka December they will take the 25% and it's over. when you get them to a amount you are comfortable with make sure that they send you a settlement offer letter stating that paying so many dollars by such and such a date settles the debt. because what some companies do is resell the remaining balance. Make sure you have the letter before any money changes hands.

I deal with 3rd party charged off debt every day and maybe 1 in 15 can be validated. Yes Bil collectors are dicks and debt buying companies are a con but there are not many jobs in Ohio these days. Hope that helps a little.
 
xd1978 is on the right path.

But his post seems kinda sparatic, and he missed at least one crucial piece of information.

Fist off check out this website Debt Consolidation Credit Counseling Free Credit Reports Increase Your Credit Score
The people in the forum over there are top notch.

Now you say this debt has been incurred for years, so the first thing you should actually do is check your states Statue of Limitations [SOL], however if it's a federal loan there is no SOL sorry. If your debt is outside of SOL then you have nothing to worry about.

Regardless you should start by sending the Collection Agency [CA] a request of Debt Valadation [DV] which will double as a Cease and Desist [CD] a sample letter here.
If the debt is outside SOL then make sure to mention they are barking up the wrong tree.

You should also dispute with the big three, Equifax, Transunion, Experian. Sample letter here. They have 30 days to respond. If not send them one of these.
If they still haven't responded in another 30 days, send them a third letter. After 90 days of initial dispute send them one of these with court papers attached.

Chances are the CA won't validate, so when they don't make sure to make it a strong point to the CA's. You can also file disputes online, but they tend to be more useless than anything. Stick with MAIL and make sure to send it certified w/ return reciept. Keep all documentation and copies from everyone, because most likely you may have to take these jackoffs to court to get this done.

Questions, feel free to ask. I wrote this when I was really tired so I may have very well missed something.
 
Man, thanks everyone for the good-sounding advise. It gives me some things to work on.

The irony of this whole story is:

I worked as a registrar at this school for a very short time. This really cute girl came in and I convinced her to enroll. She wavered, so I took the papers to her work and got her to sign them on her break.

We then started dating, which was against the rules of the school, so I got fired for it. She lost interest after only a month of the 9 month course and quit the school. She assumed the tuition refund would have been returned to settle the student loan.

We ultimately got married and didn't hear from the school or the Dept of Ed for about 8 years. By then the debt had grown from the original $2800 to about $12,000. From there it's escalated to the present $18,000. The IRS tried to offset the debt for the first time this year (17 yeasrs later) by seizing my tax refund which I recovered as an injured spouse.

My wife has never worked outside our home since we have been married, so it took a while to find her.

Ultimately, I got us into this by overzealous sales technique, but she's been worth it.:D

I had hoped that maybe the school had done something wrong in not giving a refund for the tuition.
 
alexa7 said:
Man, thanks everyone for the good-sounding advise. It gives me some things to work on.

The irony of this whole story is:

I worked as a registrar at this school for a very short time. This really cute girl came in and I convinced her to enroll. She wavered, so I took the papers to her work and got her to sign them on her break.

We then started dating, which was against the rules of the school, so I got fired for it. She lost interest after only a month of the 9 month course and quit the school. She assumed the tuition refund would have been returned to settle the student loan.

We ultimately got married and didn't hear from the school or the Dept of Ed for about 8 years. By then the debt had grown from the original $2800 to about $12,000. From there it's escalated to the present $18,000. The IRS tried to offset the debt for the first time this year (17 yeasrs later) by seizing my tax refund which I recovered as an injured spouse.

My wife has never worked outside our home since we have been married, so it took a while to find her.

Ultimately, I got us into this by overzealous sales technique, but she's been worth it.:D

I had hoped that maybe the school had done something wrong in not giving a refund for the tuition.
Click to expand...

pics please
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom