Who is the Van Ru Corporation and how are they affiliated with the US Department of Education?? I'm staring at a bunch of forms that are completed and filled out for me thanks to some wonderful woman who spoke to me on the phone the other week. She led me to believe she was with the Department of Education and was "offering" me a chance to do a Consolidation that would bring my Student Loans out of Default (which have long fallen off my CR by the way). The forms are from a "Direct Loans -William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program" and are nicely checked in places for repayment options (though it does not say anywhere what my payments would be) and lists my alleged loans with the total at the bottom. They even checked which loan program I am "applying for" - Income Contingent Repayment Plan completely disregarding three other options which are "Standard", "Extended" and "Graduated" payment plans. They have conveniently placed "stickies" as to where I am supposed to sign these forms and send them back to not the US DOE but to this Van Ru Corp in Skokie, IL. My situation, not unlike many other here, is that XX number of years ago I graduated from College with a mess of debt into an Economy gone bad and could only get a job "digging ditches" that paid appropriately. Hence my default and my entrance to this seemingly lifetime caught between Sub-Prime and Hell all of my life. I dealt with some really ugly and nasty CA's who were unscrupulous at best (they called all my relatives at one point telling them that they saw the need to warn them that they have a "deadbeat" in the family"). Yes I want to repay, it has always been my intention to re-pay and that is what I intend to do. However, it is not my intention to be the catalyst of working with this Van Ru Corp. and my living becoming a living Hell AGAIN. I think if that happens I'll sooner kill myself than deal with immoral nasty CA's again. Looking at these docs and checking the USDOE web site http://loanconsolidation.ed.gov/borrower/borrower.shtml I have some reservations about this on what to do. There is no literature in the packet that VR sent to me that indicates that I have to deal with them for any amount of time...it seems that I just send these forms in, and they magically arrange with the DOE to do this Consolidation plan and I'm off to a happy 12 years or so of montly payments in thanksgiving for my Undergrad Degree. And by doing this i will once again be eligible for Fed Student Aid and I would have the opportunity again to return to and finance Grad School which I'm really wanting to do to advance my career. However, being of a much wiser age and hanging out here I have a bit of wisdom in understanding that CA's are not my friend and the "friendly" voice to me on the phone is really a wolf in sheeps clothing. There has got to be a catch to this, i know there is. I accept that I might be Schnitzled but this time I at least want the courtesy of the reach around. Should I: 1) Mindlessly sign the forms in the right places and return them 2) Send a validation request letter to Van Ru (as I am not even sure i am the person who took out some of these loans...I don't even recognize them and I KNOW for a fact i was able to pay a few of them off 3) Ignore it all in the hopes it will all just go away while my head is in the sand. 4) Buy some K-Y Jelly and grab my ankles? Thanks for your advice.
They are a collection agency. [URL="http://www.vanru.com/]Link[/url]. They are due every bit of the courtesy and respect that we normally show to any collection agency. Start with a Validation Letter. Save the K-Y for some other occasion.
You suggest then that the "courtesy" we extend is the standard Validation letters etc. Okay...I'm with ya. Meanwhile, do I contact the DOE on the side and ask them about this Direct Consolidation program? ....putting together the validation letter for SASE in my head as I type...
Okay...my Verification request is as follows: Sir or Madam, I am in receipt of your letter of October xx, 2002. This is by no means a refusal to pay, but notice that your claim is in question. Pursuant to the rights afforded to me under the law I find that I must request validation of this debt to the US Department of Education. Take special notice that I am not requesting a "verification" that you have my mailing address, I am requesting a "validation;" that is, competent evidence that I have some contractual obligation to pay you. Send me a copy of the signed original promissory note or equivalent documentation with a signature indicating original amounts of the debt, payments received to the US DOE on this debt and I will carefully review it upon receipt. What I am looking for is documentation that adequately explains the collection amount stated as $xx,xxx.02. Furthermore, I need the information name and address of the original creditor. Your failure to satisfy this request within the requirements of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act will be construed as your absolute waiver of any and all claims against me, and your tacit agreement to compensate me for costs and attorney fees. Does this pass muster?
In the literature of the letter I discovered this paragraph in a document that appears to be authored by the DOE: What if one or more of my education loans is in default? If you're in default on a federal educaiton loan(s) made while you were a student, you may be allowed to consolidate the loan(s) if you: (1) agree to repay the loan(s) under the Income Contingent Repayment Play or (2) make a satisfactory repayment arrangement with your current loan holder(s) Now, is the original creditor the Fed's? Or is it the bank where I went for the GSL program at the time? Or....is it with the original state servicing agency (from hell) that the loans then went to Post-Graduation? The original lender has probably already been paid for the original loans which is why they are with the DOE. If it means I have to deal with that original state agency (PHEAA) again I'd rather poke my eyes out...as I have never seen such a sad display of incompetance and idiocy in my life. Furthermore, it goes on to discuss Rehab. I'm not sure I would qualify for Rehab. I think I am answering my own question here, but my response should be first to send the letter and then to contact the DOE next week and find some assistance? wonders out loudHow helpful could I find the DOE to be?
Do some searches on Education Loans, Student Loans, etc. PsychDoc has written extensively on his experiences. I have had no experience with Student loans, so I don't have a lot of specific info to give you. Sorry.
beary If you consolidate your loans while they are in default, they will again appear on your credit report. By consolidating you are starting the clock over again. Your first step should be to call the fed aid common number 1-800-433-3423 and ask who has your loans and also call Direct Loans and ask them about rehabbing your loans with them. If they won't/can't rehab your loans then bite the bullet and call PHEAA and arrange with them to rehab the loans. DO NOT SIGN A CONSOLIDATION PROMISSORY NOTE with the collection agency. That would be a VERY VERY BAD thing to do. Good luck fla-tan
It seems to me that you have them on something already. They can't impersonate the DOE, and must identify themselves as a CA when they contact you by phone. They will deny doing this, of course, but if you get a recorder and record your next conversation, their denials will just turn out to be another lie in court. The first CA who contacted me from Van Ru also tried to claim they worked for the DOE, and kept up their claim for a couple of weeks, even after I called the DOE and verified that no one by that name worked there. Maybe they'll keep that sort of thing up with you, and you can nail them on it. You don't need to clear this up if you want to go to grad school, unless your transcripts are being held. Otherwise, the only reason you would need to clear this up is if you need financial aid. By the way, it was the idiocy, ill will, dishonesty, hostility, and all-around jackassery of Van Ru that turned me in to the proud deadbeat I am today. After trying to negotiate manageable payments with them for a month and getting absolutely no where (I was unemployed, but they insisted I pay them 3k down, and 1k a month, even though they knew I didn't have it; they later moved their offer down to the entirety of my unemployment check each month, and told me I could sleep in my car until I paid them off), I decided I would never pay a CA a dime under any circumstances, and I haven't. I think fla-tan has the right idea: if validation doesn't work, find out who has the loan, and get them to take it back. Van Ru will screw you if you give them 1/2 a chance, and they will not be using any K-Y.
Billy, Do you know how close I was to undoing what has taken me so long to achieve? With one swipe of my pen under the idiotic impression that these people were trying to be "helpful" to me, I would be signing myself up for 7+ years of hell. I am horrified that they would tell you to live in your Car. What scum!!! I'm with you on the vow to never deal with or work with a CA again. I'm grateful that I'm able to nip this in the bud. Having this reaged by my own naivete had I not had this place to use as a resource would have been more than tragic. I'm sending the Validation request today SASE and I'm vowing NOT to work with these scums of the earth. I may even get myself a Tape recorder so I can catch them and document their attempt to impersonate the DOE. To say I'm outraged is an understatment, yet as others have said, it's not great surprise to find yet another unscrupulous CA.
Van Ru is pretty bad, and they ussually ignore the rules the DOE sets for them.... Anyway, I agree with another poster who suggested rehabing them. Also be aware that your validation may not work, they (meaning whoever is holding the loans) are ussually pretty good at keeping all of their records. Also, if you send the validation to Van Ru, they can decide to be a**holes and recommend you for AWG (administrative wage garnishment). Just something else to think about...
Well, they do have my employer information that's already been conveniently filled out. God, I wish I had a crystal ball. What if DOE says We don't have the debt deal with Van Ru?
I went to the usdoe website and did a search on "Loan Rehab". It pulled up search results that appear to be not for "our" eyes...that is not for public..but for collectors. Here is an interesting document on Rehabilitation. I'm still going through to see what it means, but I feel hopeful. Still, I don't see where one can go directly to the DOE. http://www.collections.sfa.ed.gov/contractors/pcanew/rehab/New.Rehab.Procedures.051602.doc
"Another gem in the pile of debt collection trash..." http://www.budhibbs.com/agencydetails.asp?ID=101
YES!! YES!! Thank you!! Reference to a really good Cease and Desist letter. It's perfectly within my legal right to refuse to deal with a collection agency on this issue and from what I've read and comments above this CA is pretty high on the sleaze factor. I'm grateful for your input. I've spent most of the day doing research on this. I was also able to view the DOE's list of my outstanding loans on the website http://www.nslds.ed.gov There are pros and cons to Rehab VS. Consolidation and I feel that I'm getting closer to making the best decision for me. The first and most important decision is to refuse to deal with the CA, particularly this one. So before they start calling my neighbors, my boss, my family and my classmates from high school I will fire off this very good C&D letter with SASE http://www.budhibbs.com/ceasecommunication.asp What I want to avoid is having these loans back on my CR's as default. I'm trying to determine the best way to take care of them in the least painful way possible. I want to pay. I'm a good citizen and I'm grateful for the opportunity of my education. I recognize that my paying into the system will help others in the future as it provides money for them to finance their education. This rationalization helps me to feel good about it. I recognize that I don't have to put up with deceptive practices. I see what Van Ru is doing. They send me the consolidation forms from Direct Loan Consolidation Center, they take that and after sucking out some money from me to them they take that app back to the DOE/DLS and get a nice I'd say 18% commission on the loans for 'finding' me. Approximately $5,400 is a lot of money to get for doing nothing and so it makes sense to me that they will try to impersonate the DOE and pretend to be my friend until they have what they need to go in for the kill. (other than that they are just nasty. To think they go home at night to their families and kiss their children with those lying lips.) I've thought about this all day as I said above and I even found myself considering selling my house. I have enough equity to pay off my loans if I were to sell and then in a way i'd be ridding myself of a pain in the ass sub-prime mortgage corporation and I'd be on my way to Financial freedom. That's the worst case scenerio.
*bump* I contacted the DOE. From their website I was able to get a pin and got access to a list of my defaulted loans. I was then able to sign a promissary note with the DOE that consolidated all of my outstanding loans directly through the DOE. The loans are held directly with the DOE and not the original Guarantor. I expect to receive statement and date of when my first payment is due. Meanwhile, Van Roe is ignoring my verification letter completely. They continue to call and leave me messages. Today I am composing and sending out a Cease And Desist letter. Yesterday I received a thick DHL Envelope from them, it was left at my doorstep. I am returning it unopened with an attached C & D sent CRR. They're complete idiots!!
