Hi I just became aware of this site by a coworker. He is helping me clean up my credit by assisting me with sending out validation leters etc... He seems to think i may have a case against Diversified Collection Services. I had a student loan that got turned over to DCS several years ago. I tried in vain to resolve the debt with them. They refused to take any offer that I made. They said I pay X amount of dollars each month or they will garnish my wages. I told them I could not afford to pay per month what they requested and offered to make a smaller payment. THey basicly told me too bad so sad and soon after my employer at the time received a garnishment letter from them. It was dated 06/28/1998. the letter goes like this. ORDER OF WITHHOLDING FROM EARNINGS Pursuant to authority granted the United Student Aid Fundsm, Inc, by Federal Law (public Law 102-164:U.S.C.(some weird looking character here) 1095a et seq), YOU, the employer of the debtor named below, ARE HEREBY ORDERED AND DIRECTED to withold income from the debtor's disposable pay from theis employment for for payment of defaulted student loans(s), as follows ........to my knowledge there was never a suit filed. THey just straight out garnished me. I live in Indiana and the company is in California. Wouldnt they have to take me to court an have a judgement placed against me in my home state? If indeed they did violate laws with this garnishment can i sue my previous employer for garnishing me without a court order? If i can sue them can i get more than they took for deflamation of character etc.... Someone please help me out with this!! Thanks!!!!!
I believe they have to sue you in order to garnish your wages. If they got a summary judgement against you, I believe you have to be notified, although I'm not sure about that. I am currently working with a CA on rahabbing my student loans, and they sent me a letter saying if I have any complaints about them, to contact the Department of Education. If you have a government student loan, you may want to consider that. If you weren't properly served for a lawsuit, you may be able to get the judgement vacated.
I think I read that student loans are a different animal, and they don't require a court order for garnishment
Government guaranteed student loans are way different than other debts They can get an "administrative wage garnishmnet" according to the US law they quoted. They do not have to go to court and sue you, and they can collect from you wherever you are once they find you you can't mess with guaranteed student loans,...your best hope is to contact them and set up a rehabilitation plan to get your loans current, then keep paying them on time At least you will be able to get them out of "default status" that way
I had a similar problem exept the student loan Grantor was the one that garnished my wages. My situation was a little different because I was already making payments for four months before they garnished me. I called Ombudsman and they where of great help dealing with the people at the student loan agency. This is the problem u have now, garnishment is not considered voluntary payment and because of that u can not get rehabilitated unless you pay the CA plus the garnishment which I imagine you are unable to do. Trust me they are Aholes and will not do anithing to hjelp you, contact the Ombudsman and follow their advice, it is a free service. They got the studenloan people to drop my garnishment and also got me a reduced monthly payment and on top of that after the year the loan will be rehabed. It is a win win for me.
also the loan is no longer with DCS it was refinance though the William D Ford gevernment loan program, they allow me to make smaller payment and they started my bureau listing fresh. But DCS is still on there as well as the original lender USA Funds I need to get both of those off still, I guess we will be sending validation letters to them as well in the near future
You may have trouble getting them off. But if you can get the money to do what you need to rehab (NOT CONSOLIDATE), it is my understanding that you are supposed to be able to get the negatives removed after a year of on-time payments. As others have already stated, this is a federally guaranteed loan and therefore they do not need to get a court order to garnish. They will also garnish any tax returns you are due, especially federal tax. The IRS is not allowed to send a refund if you owe money to the federal government. I'm not sure about state tax refunds. Any money owed to the government always has different rules attached to it. I'm not sure if it can be discharged in bankruptcy, either, but I'm not sure. I don't think there's a Statue of Limitations either.
