Hi, I’m Flea, the Newbie. I owe $78,000 in student loans that have been in default for 12 years. I initially borrowed about $30,000, the excess is interest and collection costs. If I had found this board 5 or 10 years ago, this would not be the case. I never looked for information, because I wasn’t coping -- initially out of serious health/life problems, then escalating fear and paralysis as the numbers grew and grew, and just not knowing what to do. I feel so grateful to have found this place last weekend, with all its resources and good people helping each other. No, grateful does not express what I feel. Ecstatic is more like it. I have been reading everything I can in my spare time since I joined up, and trying to push down fear and hysteria in favor of being rational, patient and confident that I can and will deal with this in a way that will not destroy what remains of my life. I have survived a whole lot in my last chunk of years, and I can survive this too! The student loans are my only debt problem today. In the last five years, I have resolved all my back taxes and medical practice debts that were not covered by insurance, and credit cards I had used to fund medical and life expenses, all on a $30,000/year salary. I currently have $1,000 on credit cards and a 775 FICO, I guess because the student loans fell off my reports years ago. While I educate myself here and work towards a strategy about how to deal with my student loans, I have 2 immediate questions: a) I have been self-employed for most of the time these loans have been in default and always owed taxes. The few months of this time that I was a W2 employee, that’s when they took my tax refund, but only after I filed my tax return for that one year, that employer was never contacted for garnishment. I recently took a new job with all W2 income. Will my employer will be contacted for garnishment immediately? I am hoping I can get the loans out of default in next few months with the help I am getting here, and that my new employer will not be contacted before I do that. If you tell me he will be contacted soon, then I might talk to him about it beforehand to try to save my job/reputation. b) My student loans fell off my credit reports long ago, I assume just because of their age. If I start paying again in rehab, will they appear again and drag down my good credit score? Anyone's advice is much appreciated, thanks for listening and Cheers, Flea
Are these loans with a collection agency or can you go to the service provider/lender and try to work with them? A lot of times you can rehab the defaulted loan and after a cetain time period the default will be removed from the CRAs, so even if it does drag the score down, it will only be temporary. You should also talk to someone and figure out how a debt went from 30k to 78k....that sounds like really excessive collection costs to me.
i had some loans defaulted for like 5 years, i contacted the collection agency and worked out a payment plan, after 12 months of good payment history they went back to the original creditor, and the loans showed payed as agreed and on time on my reports. just call the collection company and ask to have the loan Rehabilitaded
Do you have to pay the interest Do you have to pay the interest? My Dad has a defaulted PLUS loan - same thing its been like 12 years, probably not on his credit report... The CA has found him and is calling him... They are charging him the original principal plus intereste and fees. He has offered to settle for the original principal (I think about 8K) Well they turned that down - and he refues to pay them all the interest and fees (hes stubborn ) Is there any way/hope to get away from the fes and interest thats accumulated?
