The few times I ever saw a penny of my loan money, I had to sign a blotter acknowledging receipt of the money. My guess is that is pretty standard. If the school can't provide evidence that you received the money, such as your signature somewhere, and can't show that it went to tuition, and yet allowed you to continue to enroll in classes, get more loans, and even sent your transcripts to another university when you transferred, it seems to me that they would be at a disadvantage in a court room, although I'm not an attorney. But something is fishy here.
That's what I keep telling myself. It just seems strange that they can say after the fact oh well we never got paid and put it on my credit report. There must be some recourse for me. I think I will try to get the collection agency to remove the tradeline using the violations for leverage. The only reason I think they might do this is because their commission is only something like 1200. I know this because they filled out the validation form and stated their commission. So if I have them on 2 violations it might not be worth it to them to proceed to court because whatever other facts there may be they did violate the FDCPA and will have to pay up. If they agree to deletion then I can try to settle directly with the school.
If I was 100% positive I didn't get the money, I would quite frankly die before I paid it back. But that's me -- I'm pathologically stubborn. Still, you must be under some kind of powerful motivating factor to be willing to pay them so much money on a debt that is invalid. I'd make them prove they had my signature or something first. Going after the CA is worth a try, but my experience with CAs that work for universities is that they are pretty cocky. They know they have leverage, your transcripts if nothing else, and they are used to dealing with young people, who are easily spooked and generally have access to some form of funding (parents) with which to pay in an emergency. I don't mean to discourage you, because it's worth a try, but you should know the attitude you're up against in advance. In my opinion, the weak link here is the school, which is obviously responsible for some kind of screwup. But it would take time to trace it back,which you don't seem to have.
The powerful motivator is that I am going to start home shopping in January and I know I'll have to pay the debt if it doesn't come off by then. Other than that I would never pay because my transcripts from them were already forwarded to NYU when I transferred so they can hold the transcripts until their blue in the face. Do you think it would be wise for me to just get a lawyer on this one. Perhaps they won't be so cocky when they see that I'm not kidding. My thing is will a lawyer fight for a deletion for me? Because that's what I'm interested in.
I wouldn't pay because I think they took advantage of me by allowing me to continue to rack up all these thousands of dollars in debt without telling me something was wrong. That is very wrong, almost predatory and quite honestly I do not think they deserve to be paid if they were irresponsible enough to screw up the loans and diabolical enough to try to make me pay for their incompetence.
When you say they didn't properly notify you and kept letting you sign up semester after semester, who do you think was paying for it?? You are going to force yourself into being sued. Again I don't want to sound negative but if you force their cards they most certianly will counter sue you for the money you owe them and prove you used their services. It won't mean jack squat to the judge if you say they didn't properly notify you of the expenses you were incurring, you kept signing up and going to school, you were not offered a free college education from them. You can defientely sue over the dispute thing but again I think they will sue back and then you are now left holding an $8000.00 Judgement on your credit report. The amount of damages you might be awared could be very minimal compared to what they will get against you. I'm sure somewhere within those class or semester sign-up's there is something stipulating that you are obligated to pay them for the classes you take. I might be wrong, but the burden of them proving you took the classses and didn't pay looks like it might be easy for them to do. Any type of billing disputes if I'm not mistaken need to be handled under the Fair Credit and Billing Act which you would need to look into and see if it applies to your case. Your best and safest bet if you know you owe them this money is to contact them and make arrangements for payment for deletion from your credit files. If not you could try and spam the CRA's monthly with disputes over the account. I have had minimal sucess with this strategy. I wish you the best! Tac
Please don't take this the wrong way because that is not my intention. But some of you with your self rightous responses are truly amazing. If you took the classes pay them the money. Well if you ran up that credit card pay them the money. Who cares if you fell into financial hardship. Pay them the money and stop validating, disputing etc. Because many of you know that you in fact incurred debts for which you are trying to get of and to deny it is just plain dishonest. As I stated previously it is not my intention to ruffle any feathers and if they can document what happened to my student loans and satisfactorily explain why they never notified me then I will pay the school. But I won't pay the ca. I never intended to get a free eductaion and that is hardly the point. If I had thought I was getting a free education I would not have signed up for student loans and grants. I pay over $22,000 a year to NYU so the money is hardly the issue. Let me ask you a question: If you paid a plumber to fix your pipes and three years later he comes to you and says oh by the way I threw away the checks you gave me and I want the money now plus interest would you just say o.k.? Or would you have questions that you want answered before agreeing to fork over your money? To throw out answers like just pay the money is highly hypocritical and does not fall into the realm of extending advise or help which is what I asked for. As for the rest of you that sincerely tried to help, whether I agreed or not, thank you that is what this board is all about.
Hey, wait a minute Robin, I'm not being hypocritical, and I do think such advice rests squarely within "what this board is all about." I've always been someone who advises that consumers should pay their debts when they can. The key here is "when they can," I think. Many people on this board have suffered unexpected and severe financial hardship, fraud, divorce or severe medical problems, and other situations where paying the debt is quite simply unfeasible. In your case, it's my opinion (and you asked for all our opinions) that if you can pay NYU $22,000 per year (as you said, "so the money is hardly the issue"), then maybe you could work out a payment plan over a few years for the $8,000 you owe the University of Maryland. Moreover, you may be able to trade that for derogatory tradeline deletions. How is such practical financial counsel hypocritical? I think the real strength of this board is that you receive a wide variety of advice from all different types of people when you ask a question. Some of the advice you may like, and some you may not. (At least I've found that to be the case when I ask questions.) But leveling insults -- "hypocrite" -- simply because you don't like the advice probably doesn't advance anyone's aims. I personally think you've been helped greatly by hearing what's been offered here, and I hope you're grateful for the time I and others have put into this thread during the last day on your behalf, although it doesn't sound like it. Speaking for myself, having been duly branded a hypocrite, I won't waste my time anymore, but good luck to you regardless. Doc
Doc: As I stated in my very first sentence I had hoped this wouldn't be taken the wrong way. I guess it was. Also, I am sorry if I have wasted your time. That was not my intention and I do feel that you have taken my comments out of context. However, I was not referring to anyone as a hypocrite, my statement was intended to mean I thought the advice was hypocritical considering what this board is all about. Like the advice I received it was simply my opinion and it was not aimed at you. However, if you would feel better just ignoring my posts from now on that is certainly your choice. I am here to help and to receive help and I will continue to do so. I do apologize if I have offended you as that was not my intention and I thought that I had attempted to make that clear in my post. What ever you decide, I thank you for your help and like I stated in my posts I am grateful to all of those that offered their opinions whether I agreed or not.
Ok, well I'm relieved to hear you say that. You're somebody I've always liked here, and I did take the "self-righteous" and "hypocritical" phrasing the wrong way. Thanks for clarifying. Doc
Doc: Thanks for understanding. I think a good lesson for all of us is that when the stress and burden of this fight becomes too much sometimes we get snappish. It does us no good to participate in infighting among ourselves and I will be certain to check myself on this in the future. Doc, I hope we are squared away because I don't know what I would do without your advice. It has truly been a saving grace for me on many occassions.
