This letter has me really confused. here's the deal. I had two student loans. two from Sallie Mae and the other from the dept of Education. the one's for Sallie Mae are being reported on my credit report under Sallie Mae-FFelp and Sallie Mae Student Loans. They are both the same exact Account #'s. At any rate I have disputed these and the information was updated on both them as being charged of in 12/01. The amounts for these loans are $800.00 and $1750.00. Now, I have a student loan that is from the Dept of Education which is for $ 4757.00 original amount and right now is in deferrment, which is showing on my credit reports. I just rec'd a letter last week from the dept of Education asking me if I want to continue my deferrement, but the total that they were showing on the letter was for something like $6500.00, which I'm going to continue to do for the next 6 months, so I can get back on my feet. the letter I rec'd today is from AES/PHEAA (American Education Services). It has the Account # of the Sallie-Mae's that are being reported on my credit report. The letter reads as follows: Dear Kathy This letter is in regards to the default claim previously paid by this Agency on one or more of your educational loan notes. Your continued refusal to acknowledge the balance due on this claim is resulting in the review of your accounts for additional action. You MUST remit payment immediately to avoid the possible garnishment of your wages or referral of your account to a collection agency. THE OUTSTANDING BALANCE OF $ 4,436.89 IS NOW DUE AND PAYABLE TO AES/PHEAA! You must send this amount to the follwoing address and include your account number (ss) to assure proper crediting of payment. Be advised that AES/PHEAA has reported each defaulted loan note to national credit bureaus as a GOVERNMENT CLAIM. This reporting Carries a NEGATIVE rating and may have an adverse effect on furture applications for credit. Your continued failure to repay this debt will result in the garnishment of your wages or any Federal refunds you may be due. Delaying repayment will not relieve you of this obligation. as there is no satute of limitations applicable to this debt. Garrison E. Lebo director Loan assets managment Help!!!!!!!! I'm sorry that this is so long but I wanted to get the whole picture accross to whoever is reading this. I'm not sure what to do about this. The amount is complelely different then what is showing for Sallie Mae, and I thought all the loans were transferred back to the Dept of Education. kathy
I would contact the guy in the letter. I didn't pay on student loans and now I still owe practically the same amount as when I started in 1994. From my experience, they are the ONLY ones that are impossible to have removed. I know for a fact they will take your Tax Refunds. (at least they did with my State funded Student Loan. Better get on it and start asking some questions of the loan company.
there's only one thing I really don't understand. How can they try to collect on a loan that was charged off. is that possilble. or I'm I missing something?? kathy
One issue is the Statute of limitations. For student loans I don't think there is a SOL. The second issue is that an account should fall of your credit report after 7 years + 180 days from when the first payment was late if the account was created on or after January 1 1998.
Both the Sallie Mae accounts were open in 1995. but Experian is saying that they will continue on my report until 2008? They are saying they were last reported in 5/2002, that is when I put the dispute in to the CRA's kathy
student loans have no sol. they may have to be taken off your reports aftet the seven year mark but they can and will collect them including wage garnishement (no judgement needed) and seizure of tax refunds. you need to get copies of your student loan file, promissary notes etc,so you can see whats up. I would guess that you can consolidate the loans or work out a payment plan. check out the higher education act for more info on student loans.. i believe there is a link in the faq section.
Uniondiva and to all who replied to this post. I really appreciate all your input. This is so confusing to me right now, this came right out of left field. I will check into the link and see if I can gather some more info as to what might be happening thank you again kathy
Kathy, perhaps your confusion is coming from reading this board and thinking that you can deal with a student loan the same way you can deal with a credit card company. You can't. It is not the same thing. Validation letters and C&D's aren't going to make it go away. You need to rehab your loans and get them back on track. There are some student loan experts on here who can tell you exactly how to go about it. They will still be after you 20 years from now. You can't just walk away from them.
The terms charge off or P&L, (profit and loss) writeoff, are a major source of confusion. Either one means the creditor has moved the debt to the "non-performing" side of their books. You are still legally liable until the SOL expires, then said debt is "extinguished." Unfortunately, student loans are not subject to the SOL. Information is power!
I was always under the impression that SL's can stay on your report indefinately if not paid. Where I heard this, who knows.
Thanks again for all the insight. breeze, I don't want to sound like I'm being defensive in this reply, so please don't take it that way when you read this. I really don't think that student loan's are like any other creditor. These loans are legitamet loans and I know I own them, but I had gotten so far behind and and knocked down so far that I could not pay them, so they are looking really bad on my reports I'm not trying to walk away from them. My confusion is not on the SOL. I know student loans do not have a SOL. My confusion is with the two bills I had gotten. one from US dept of Ed, which are in deferrment and the others from Sallie Mae. Sallie Mae's amount is really really high. and I was under the assumption that these loans were transferred back to the US dept of education. I actually did call today to talk to both parties and find out what was going on. as a matter of fact Sallie Mae is really going to work with me on these loans. anyway I really really do appreciate everyone's reply's. I was really upset yesterday when I rec'd that letter from Sallie Mae, I can't afford to have my wages garnished. kathy
Sorry I guess my post sounded judgmental. I don't do that, and I didn't mean it that way. When you said you disputed them, I assumed you were treating them like any other debt. I don't give a hoot who walks away from what. That's their business. I just didn't want you to think you could deal with this the same way you deal with deal with other unsecured debt.
Kathy Your confusion is not unjustified. I will try to give you some insight. First, Sallie Mae loans are issued and serviced through the Federal Family Educational Loan Program and hence are called FFEL loans. Department of Education Student loans are called Direct Student loans and are serviced by Direct Loan servicing also called William D Ford. These are normally diferent loans. FFEL loans are normally not transferred to the Dept of Ed when you go into default. They are transferred to the Guarantee Agency that originally guaranteed them for collection purposes and the guarantor assigns them to a collection agency for collection. When this occurs, under federal law, several onerous things happen. 1) Interest rates go to about 18% 2) A fee of about 25% of the loan amount is added to the loan 3) A really horrific and onerous collection agency starts calling you(though they must stay within FDCA rules) 4) You lose the right to get any additional student loans Possible solution: Contact the Dept of Ed's servicer WD Ford( their website is www.dlservicer.ed.gov I think) and ask them about consolidating all your debt. Normally I would recommend consolidating while in default as that forces the default notation to remain on your credit for 7 years, but in your situation it may be the best solution. Good luck fla-tan
fla-tan, Thanks so much for given me a little better understanding of these loans, your post really helped alot. I did Call (Saliie Mae), actually I think I caught it in time, they were getting ready to send it to a collection agency, that is all I need is to deal with another one of them. In my conversation with the girl from Sallie Mae, she explained to me that if I start making payment and can stay consistant for at least 12 to 14 payments that they would be willing to drop the R9 rating and pull the account out of default, which I thought was a great plan, I also talked to the Dept of Ed they said I could consolidate the loans, which actually they would give me a better (lower) interest rate, but I'm going to opt for they other plan, getting the R9 rating dropped and pulled out of default. I have to make this look a little better on my credit reports anyway I can. Do you think I should ask Sallie Mae if they could send me something stating that getting the R9 dropped and pulled out of default if I pay consistant ?? I don't want to step on their toes. I'm sorry it took my so long to respond. I had a very busy weekend and I could not get on the board at all. Breeze, Thanks so much for responding to my prevoius post. Im glad you did'nt take my post offensivly. I would never be like that to anyone. I love this board to much. kathy
Kathy Glad I was able to be of some assistance. Since Sallie Mae hasn't sent your account to collection yet, then in the long run, doing the rehab route and having them drop the R9 is to your benefit. Next May or early June contact Sallie Mae and ask if they will allow you to consolidate your loans with them as current so that you can fix the historically low rate as permanent. fla-tan
fla-tan I will definately do that, thanks so much !!! I feel so much better about this whole situation then I did a few days ago. one more question. do you think I should ask sallie Mae (the person I was speaking with), if they should send me something stating the conversation we had about the payments and dropping the R9?? kathy
Actually Kathy, according to Federal Guidelines and the HEA the current servicer/lender is required to remove negative info concernign student loans opon rehab. Good luck fla-tan
