My boyfriend owes approximately $10,000 on a student loan. He finished school in 1999 and asked for a deferment on the loan payments. They came back several months later saying that he was delinquent and needed to start making payments. To make a long story short, over a period of two years he repeatedly asked for a deferment and filled paperwork out numerous times to get one â?¦ and they never deferred the payments â?¦ after leading him to believe each time that they would be. We have been through a lot of financial problems since he finished school and are finally getting to where we can afford to make the payments on these loans. The only problem is .. since these payments were never deferred, the loan is now in default. He is now dealing with a rather nasty collection agency, Windham Professionals â?¦. The name is very misleading as they are the complete opposite of professional! Instead of calling him , a woman named Cathy from the CA called the main office of his employer and told a woman in payroll to have him call or else they would begin garnishing his wages. When he called back, Cathy was unavailable and he spoke with somebody else. This person told him to go to the bank and try to get a loan. If he was denied .. then they would make payment arrangements (after seeing the denial letter.) He then gave them a $175 check by phone to â??keep them from starting the garnishmentsâ?. A week later, Cathy called for him at work. When a co-worker asked to take a message because he was out of the office, Cathy told her that if she did not have him come to the phone that minute, she was going to start garnishing his wages. When he called back later, Cathy was extremely nasty to him and told him she wanted payment in full by this Friday or the garnishment will start. When he told her that he was unable to get a loan from a bank and brought up what the other person had said about the denial letter and payment arrangement, she said â??If your bank or family doesnâ??t trust you enough to pay them back, then why should we? There are no ifs ands or buts about it.â? She then hung up on him. He is not irresponsible .. he understands that he owes this money and all he wants to do is get this paid off .. but we cannot afford to pay the full amount right now! We have no way of getting a loan to pay this off and we cannot afford to have his wages garnished either. A friend told us that if he sent them a payment each month, even if it was 20 bucks .. that they could not garnish his wages. Does anybody know if this is true? Even so, the CA refused to give him a mailing address. Also, was it not ILLEGAL for this Cathy woman to tell a coworker personal information about his debt and possible garnishment? I would greatly appreciate any advice!!
Slam dunk lawsuit! It is totally illegal what she has done. You need to have these calls stopped asap. Send a C&D letter, and invest in overnight mail. Find a managers name to have it sent to. Tell them to cease immediately, tell of the violations and that you alreay have them on at least $3000 in violations of the FDCPA. Then file the lawsuit. If they keep it up, they will end up paying for his student loan!
you can get the address info form his credit report, if the address is not listed then you can call the CRA and they have to furnish the info. this CA is a jerk and knows you can not qualify for most loans with a defalt student loan. you can coplain to the CO about the CA and tell them that you are willing to make payments with them but not the CA, I did this over the phone and it worked but now I do everything in writing. send the CO a CRRR stateing you are willing to make payment and a measure of good faith. don't talk to the CA jerk demand in writing that they not contact you by phone at all.
what a horrible story.. THE NERVE OF THESE PEOPLE!!! I am subscribing to this thread to check out some of the follow ups..
thanks for all of the good advice .. i am working on a C&D for him right now. my only concern is: if they get this letter, will they start garnishment?? they said they were going to take a nice percentage of each paycheck .. and we just cant afford it! we have a one year old son and i am trying to go to school ... money is tight as it is, i don't know what we'd do with a huge chunk taken out. i am scared to death! if we talked to the OC and started sending THEM 50 bucks a month .. would the CA legally be able to garnish his wages?
Stef First thing in the morning, call the Dept of Ed's ombudsmans' office and explain your situation. I am not sure of the number, but the FEDAID general number is 1-800-4FEDAID (1-800-433-3243). They are there to help. Unfortunately, many of the CAs that deal with defaulted student loans are extremely heavy handed in their approach to collecting on these accounts. And I have not heard of any cases where the courts have sided against the CA and with the student loan holder when the CA violates FDCA. Good luck Stef. fla-tan
Calm down. They are playing you like a violin. You are running scared just like they want you to be. I've dealt with many nasty CA's over the years. My experience has been, the more they bark, the less they bite. My gut feeling about this CA is that if you stand up to them, they will go away. You have to understand how a CA works. The CA methods run the spectrum from unprofessional abusive jerks to law-abiding and professional collectors. Those on the low end, like yours, use threats and intimidation as their collection method. They work fast, cheap, break a few laws, and hope they get lucky. The professional CA's are the ones that scare me. They know they don't have to resort to stupid stunts to do their job. They cross their T's and dot their I's, and they have the law on their side, as long as they don't break it. They cost more, but they are methodical and they can get the job done. Since this CA has proven themselves to be unprofessional and willing to break the law, I would call their bluff. I think that you will find that they are really nothing at all. They have already broken enough laws that you can sue them. For CA's like this, I like to use the "Give 'em enough rope to hang themselves" strategy. A bit of advise: Don't believe a CA when they say they will sue if you do or don't do something. A CA has already made up their minds to sue ahead of time and there is really nothing you can do to stop them. If they are really going to sue, they don't call you with threats. They just go ahead and file. They don't need your permission. The fact that they call with this garbage tells me that they really don't have the will to actually do it. In case you don't know, they have to sue and win a judgement before they can garnish wages. So stop freaking out. There are a few more steps that have to be done before that can happen. No one can simple call you employer and simply tell them to start sending part of your pay to them. I personally am not a fan of the C&D letter. I like to keep communications open with my CA's. I like to know what they are up to. The worse CA's will continue to make mistakes that you can then sue them for. I only send a C&D when they threaten to harm me or someone I know. Then for me it is personal, and as far as I am concerned, it is a declaration of war. I also have to get on my soapbox here. When you and your husband decided not to pay a debt (for whatever reason), that carries with it risk. There is a risk that you can be sued, wages garnished, credit runied, etc. So when you made that choice, you accepted that risk. I get angry when people who choose this path act suprised and upset when their creditors fight back. Did you really think they would forget about you? When you made that decision, you have to also prepare to accept the concequences, which include abusive CA's. There are no guarantees. I am not saying you should tolorate anyone breaking the law. But you should not be upset when they take action to protect their interests and assets. They have every right to do this. Be aware that you can be put in a position where they are garnishing wages and assets. There is a chance you will loose. The reason I mention this is because even if you shut this CA down, you and your husband need to seriously think through all of this. You need to plan how you are going to deal with this debt. What to do if you are sued. What to do if you loose a suit. What to fight back with. If you ignore this and panic everytime something happens on the other side like you are doing now, then you are going to get screwed. There will be other CA's, and other problems. Anticipate their actions, prepare your response, and things will be much easier on you. So to answer your question about if they will sue. Who cares? No one can answer that. You do what you have to do to protect yourself, and they will do whatever they planned to do anyhow. Good luck.
can you do a search on CreditNet on rehabilitation of student loans? anybody, can you furnish threads and give overview of process? I know this has been a hot topic?
Stef, Whatever you do - PLEASE DO NOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THAT!!! Just because this is a student loan, they still have to abide by the rules set aside by the FDCPA. It's a big no no to contact other people and discuss your personal business with the - the can only ask if you are there PERIOD 1.) Send the Cease and Desist letter immediately 2.) Send a validation letter (you have aright to know the real amounts they are asking for. As for the Ombudsman - it's been my personal experience with them they are totaly useless in almost any of these matters. I originally had the misconception they were there to SOMEWHAT help you - dont believe it!! You have a lawsuit here!!! Good luck, Sal
Another thing I wanted to add - you will obviously have to pay the loans at some point, but that CA is breaking the law and neither of you deserve to go through that treatment. I really think rehabing is the way to go - and all negative marks will go away after 12 months on time payments.
well .. i hope we didn't screw up here: he called the ombudsman this afternoon .. and you are right sal826 ... useless. they just gave him the number for the FTC. the FTC supposedly started an investigation on this CA (Windham Professionals - to answer EdG's question) but did not really help us at all. then he called a lawyer who told him that we had them on at least 3 violations of the FDCPA and also slander. the lawyer said that we would almost definitely win this case. but he wanted my boyfriend to call the CA back and speak with a manager to see if they would cooperate in setting up rehab. (apparently, it is up to the CA to set up the rehab .. we called the OC and they confirmed this .. they basically wanted nothing to do with us) the manager at the CA was extremely apologetic and helpful (of course.) and set up the rehab .. agreed to the exact amount we wanted to be paying each month. also agreed to not call him at work anymore. i am relieved that he got into the rehab ... but i am not sure he should have let the CA get away with what they did. i guess it is too late now thanks for all your help, guys!
Stef, I'm really sorry to see you two going through this mess - I'm just now fixing my disaster. Yep the ombudsman is a real piece of work eh? The guy I talked to sounded like he was a high school kid....lol Just so you know ITS THE LAW (structured within Higher Education Act) they HAVE TO let you rehab if you so choose. Don't let anyone tell you different!! I strongly suggest you first get proper validation/statement of account then enter the loans into rehabilitation (everything negative comes off the loans after the 12th month) Good luck, and don't worry Sal
oops, I didn't quite read through the last part of your post - I see now you did rehab it after all. (I'm really tired right now) Nice job
Stef, I dealt with Windham proffesionals as well. If I'm not mistakin their up in New Hampshire. They harassed me as well (not nearly as bad as you though). I finally got frustated with them and paid my loans off through consolidation (very stupid move). I should have continued to push for rehab. EdG
Try: Windham Professional P.O. Box 1048 Salem, NH 03079 Good luck, wajaba [ON EDIT] Sorry, guess I'm a little late...I didn't see your post about your rehab already being in the works... wajaba
