As I stated a couple of days ago I am trying to clean up my credit. Yesterday I received a letter from Citibank regarding a student loan a had with them. I obtained the student loan in July of 1992. My withdrawal date (dropped out of the school) is March 23,1993. I found this out from the National Student Loan Database Website. So that means I was supposed to start paying it back six months after that date. Well I wrote to Citibank asking for all information that pertains to my loan (especially the original deliquent date)and they replied: Thank you for your recent corresponce regarding your student loan account. Your telephone number has been changed to 555-1212. We have changed your mailing address to the address referenced above. Your loan has been purchased by Ed Fund. Please contact them regarding the status of your loan. Then they give the address to Ed Fund. And they say their sorry the cannot further assist me. So do you think that means that if I dispute this loan that they will not verify it. How can they not have that kind of information when they are reporting to the credit bureaus. The whole reason I wrote to them is to see what original delinquent date they had. What do you guys think, should I dispute? It only appears on my Trans Union and Equifax file. If so, what reason should I give when I dispute??
Molly, I hate to tell you this. And I hope you dont get angry with me. But, student loans cant be disputed just like that. In other words, you can not get out of paying a student loan. There is no statute of limitations. I personally have been in your shoes with Citibank. The response you received is generic. Citibank has all the information on your account and they will verify it if disputed. But,maybe it is possible that it will be deleted. Anything is possible. I recommend you contact Ed Fund and set up some kind of agreement.But only if you have some money to start making payments. As far as I know student loans can be reported longer than seven years if unpaid. Now I dont know that personally. I havenot had them delinquent past 7 years. I am going on what I have read on other boards like this. If you rehabilitate the loan which takes 12 months of ontime payments the item will be deleted from your report. The delinquency will be gone but you have to repay the loan. Student loans are like herpes. There is no cure baby. Just kidding! Ed fund should offer rehabilitation to you. Dont be surprised if these people start harrassing you because that is what these collection agencies for student loans usually do. Dont contact them until you have a little extra cash to start some kind of negotiation and payments. You are very lucky that they havenot contacted you by now. They probably couldnot find you because of your address change. But you just gave it to Citibank so WAtch Out. My experience was that when they find you, they threaten to garnish your paycheck and tax returns. If you rehabiliate which takes 12 months or consolidate which only take 3 months you will be out of any jeopardy. Beware however that consolidation leaves the once defaulted on your credit report. However it is reported with a 0 balance with a R5(90days late notation). If you do this it is possible that you may get this thing dropped from your report in 2002 as expected. If you rehabilitate it will probably be near 2002 before you complete the program so it is up to you what you want to do. Molly, is this making sense? In either case the payments are usually very low. Consolidation which is what I have done is ridiculously low. You are also eligible for forbearance if you consolidate because it is out of default. Molly I hope this helps and if I have left you with questions just ask. Good Luck!
The loan has been paid off. I went through the rehab program. It was sent to Ed Fund and then to several others but as of Sept. 2000 it was paid. Citibank was the ORIGINAL lender. The problem is they are using different dates for reporting and I noticed on the dept of EDs website that student loans are reported by the original delinquent date. So you're saying that Citibank has the info. but their just being lazy and pushing it off on ED Fund?
That is a totally different situation. I wish you had stated that before. You need to contact the department of education and get a caseworker on your behalf. The lender/creditors will blow you off about this. One reason that I didnot do the rehabilitation program is that one of the reps for my original lender told me that her agency had a tendency to deny or blow people off after going through rehabilitation. Now, I knew I wasnot up for that so I just consolidated. They have to by gov regulations, remove the default. I have heard that many who have rehabilitated are having problems with this. The dept of ed can not make them remove the default. They will contact them and ask them why they arenot following the regulations. Call 1 877 557 2575 quickly or email at http://osfaombudsman.ed.gov.. And yes, Citibank is bullshitting. They blew me off in '99 when my loans originally defaulted. I contacted them again this year with the dept of ed complaint and they suddenly started calling my house with information. Of course they have the records. Actually for me it was still in the computer. Yours is older though so may be a little different. I would dispute it in your case now that I know it is paid with citibank and the collection agencies just to see what happpens. I deleted my citibank loans on my equifax as reported by USA Funds this summer. Good luck Girl!
I did the rehab thing only because I was already in repayment. I said what the hell it could only help me get at least one bad mark removed. I could not consolidate because I only had one loan left. It did work on Trans Union, not only did they remove all the negative remarks but it now appears as a positive mark with NO adverse info. I was so happy. Now I am trying for the other 2 CRAS. The rehab program only removes marks by EdFund/CA STudent Aid. Citibank is the original lender. They have not updated that account since 3/97 on my credit reports. Should I go straight to the Dept. of Ed or dispute with Equifax and Experian. I already tried EDFund. What a joke. I originally wrote a letter, they then responded by phone. I played phone tag with the rep for 2 weeks. I got her voice EVERY time I called. Needless to say I gave up on them. So now I need to try something else. In case your confused I have one loan that is being reported by Citibank (original Lender) and EdFund/Ca Student Aid(they bought it from Citibank). Any additional suggestions would be helpful. Once again, it has been paid in full.
I would do both Molly. Roll the dice. This item may disappear in a 30day dispute as I said before. But if you want this off for good and want to exercise your rights you should fight this. Send them a letter stating that they are violating the ED bill and you plan to file a complaint with the FTC. But listen Molly, I am going to cut this short and make it real easy for you. Go the the following website. There you will find out all about the rehab system and the problems associated with it. It will tell you what to do exactly and who to write. I had to spend 20 minutes finding it again so please read up. Once again, good luck. http://www.carreonandassociate.com/stuloanrehab.htm
