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01 February, 2008

Deadbeat No Longer

Let's start with an admission of guilt: 

Hello, my name is Jamie, and I have terrible credit. The best example of why I have bad credit is that I applied for a Discover Card in college just to get a free PEZ dispenser. It was pretty much all down hill from there. Did you know they expect you to PAY for that stuff eventually?

About 4 1/2 years ago, my student loans defaulted to a point where I got a letter in the mail giving me 2 weeks to make a payment or they were going to start sucking money straight from my paycheck. I called them 13 days after I got the letter, and the man on the other end of the phone explained to me that I had 2 weeks from the date they sent it, and that I was too late. The garnishment was effective immediately.  And 10% of my pay has been going to the student loan people ever since.

Fast forward to a year ago: I started thinking I should be just about done with these payments, and called my company's payroll department to find out what the balance was. Payroll didn't know. They basically told me that they take the money out until the government tells them to stop.  Dead end. And in typical Jamie fashion, I got distracted by something else and forgot all about it.

Finally, yesterday I called SALLIE MAE. A man in India called me back this morning (yes, the US Department of Education has outsourced its call centers to India… I'm still in shock!) and he couldn't help me. He transferred me to a woman here in the US who told me that SALLIE MAE doesn't have my account. She gave me the phone number for PHEAA and I was on my way.

When I called PHEAA, I was mildly amused to find out that it was the deadbeat hotline (ok, "default collections" department, same thing!). The girl I spoke to was so incredibly helpful. She told me I had a little over $3,000 left on the loan, and then went on to explain that because I was paying involuntarily, that my credit is continuing to decline (really - I need to pull my credit score - it's got to be the lowest possible number!). So she sent me the form to do an auto-debit from my checking account. Once I send them the form, they will cancel my garnishment and in 9-11 payments my account will be transferred back to the "good girl" department. So by the time I pay off the loan, it will actually be in good standing.

Of course, I'm thrilled about that. The payments are actually lower than what is being taken out of my paycheck now. What bugs me is my contact with the last person. He never gave me any other options. He told me it was too late, and basically that this was my lot in life. Any time over the past four years, I could have made the call I made today and gotten back on track, but I never knew that was an option.

But enough blaming other people for my issues. This is a happy day. Thank you Andrea for being nice to me and helping me take a step to putting my financial life back together!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In my recently impoverished status, I've accidentally found out that all collections departments have good-cop/bad-cop people working there. Some of them all but threaten your life, and some are very helpful, and seem willing to treat you like a nice person. And so if I call and get a meanie, I pretend my cell phone is losing bars, hang up, call back, and try my luck getting a nicer person! It works! Weather they call you, or you call them, if you don't like the tone, hang up and call back!

I used to think they were nicer if I contacted THEM, rather than waiting for them to contact me ... this is not the case. The meanies both make and receive calls!

The exception is American Express! They're all mean. I'd even venture to say that if they accidentally hire a nice person, they re-train them post haste!