Argh! <- sound of me pulling my hair out!
Between DH and I we have student loans through about 3 different companies, once they got done selling them back and forth. As Dh and I have been out of work for over a year and couldn't afford to repay them during this time, the obvious choice was to defer them as allowed. Not a big deal, sucks a bit, but given everything else, not worth losing sleep over.
So about a week ago I get a letter in the mail from the State of Mo saying that the one loan company has reported me as defaulting and has sold my loan to the state and a collection company will be contacting me. Huh??? There was NO CONTACT ever notifying me that the deferrment (or forebearance, I always get the two terms confused) had ended, NO bill for payment, NO contact to see if I could start paying them, nothing. Ever. I'm seriously thinking that some of the loan companies are doing this with loans as the deferrment ends, so they can offload their unpaid debt on the books, as the lady at the state said she's been hearing this a lot lately. Nice, huh.
Now here's the good side. If I make payments for the next 9 months, any negative credit stuff is wiped from my credit. Guess with credit checks being common, we're not moving any time soon (once we have jobs, etc.). So I get a call from the collection company, and I explain our situation. No, we can't pay $700 a month, sorry. That's laughable actually right now. No, I cannot commit to paying even $50 a month when we don't have jobs. I *hope* I would have that, but I'm not going to promise something that I'm not relatively comfortable I can do - I may be broke but I do have a few shreds of integrity left. Plus that would only screw me worse if I couldn't pay it. I get transferred to 3 people. All but the last one were very nice, I explained in detail over and over our situation, etc. The last one started going off on me about how I need to be responsible and I need to find someone to borrow money from and on and on. Finally I'd had it, told her yeah I was obviously a deadbeat loser, whatever, I was sick of being yelled at for losing my job and hung up. Not my finest moment, I'll admit.
These should NEVER have even been sold as defaulted and I shouldn't even be dealing with this, much less being yelled at for it! Now, the worst they can do is garnish my wages (um, I have none, that's rather the crux of the issue!) and take my tax return (again, have none coming, see previous!). When I have income, as long as I call them and make arrangements then none of that will happen, so really, it's just a holding pattern like everything else. Sigh. Just another hassle on the pile. I am just so angry about this whole situation and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it!
Between DH and I we have student loans through about 3 different companies, once they got done selling them back and forth. As Dh and I have been out of work for over a year and couldn't afford to repay them during this time, the obvious choice was to defer them as allowed. Not a big deal, sucks a bit, but given everything else, not worth losing sleep over.
So about a week ago I get a letter in the mail from the State of Mo saying that the one loan company has reported me as defaulting and has sold my loan to the state and a collection company will be contacting me. Huh??? There was NO CONTACT ever notifying me that the deferrment (or forebearance, I always get the two terms confused) had ended, NO bill for payment, NO contact to see if I could start paying them, nothing. Ever. I'm seriously thinking that some of the loan companies are doing this with loans as the deferrment ends, so they can offload their unpaid debt on the books, as the lady at the state said she's been hearing this a lot lately. Nice, huh.
Now here's the good side. If I make payments for the next 9 months, any negative credit stuff is wiped from my credit. Guess with credit checks being common, we're not moving any time soon (once we have jobs, etc.). So I get a call from the collection company, and I explain our situation. No, we can't pay $700 a month, sorry. That's laughable actually right now. No, I cannot commit to paying even $50 a month when we don't have jobs. I *hope* I would have that, but I'm not going to promise something that I'm not relatively comfortable I can do - I may be broke but I do have a few shreds of integrity left. Plus that would only screw me worse if I couldn't pay it. I get transferred to 3 people. All but the last one were very nice, I explained in detail over and over our situation, etc. The last one started going off on me about how I need to be responsible and I need to find someone to borrow money from and on and on. Finally I'd had it, told her yeah I was obviously a deadbeat loser, whatever, I was sick of being yelled at for losing my job and hung up. Not my finest moment, I'll admit.
These should NEVER have even been sold as defaulted and I shouldn't even be dealing with this, much less being yelled at for it! Now, the worst they can do is garnish my wages (um, I have none, that's rather the crux of the issue!) and take my tax return (again, have none coming, see previous!). When I have income, as long as I call them and make arrangements then none of that will happen, so really, it's just a holding pattern like everything else. Sigh. Just another hassle on the pile. I am just so angry about this whole situation and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it!
