I recently looked at all three of my credit reports after filing bankruptcy – chapter 7 and my student loans were also discharged in my bankruptcy.

Do I still need to pay the loan since I recently got a bill from citibank for the loans?

Yve (more…)

I graduated in 2007 and, because I’m still looking for a financially stable job, I requested and recieved a deferment/forbearance on my student loans for reason of economic hardship (it seems no one is hiring grads these days). My question is whether or not this will affect my credit score?

Lisa (more…)

How can i get my student loan re-aged?

Cheri (more…)

I am trying to fix my credit. I am 34 years of age and I don’t know where to start.I made very bad decisions when i was younger. My credit is horrible, I have student loans, credit card settlements, and defaulted credit card accounts that are now closed.

This is 2008 and I would to fix my credit and buy a home like to buy a home and I know I won’t be able to do it alone but I would like to try where and how do you suggest i start?

Natasha (more…)

In March or April of 2006, I completed a rehabiltation on a defaulted student loan. As promised all derogatory information was deleted (I did have to do a little “Higher Education Act” arm-twisting with Nelnet before I convinced them they had to delete!) My loan was bought by ACS/Suntrust immediately following the rehab. All subsequent payments to ACS/Suntrust were made on time.

In May of 2007 I obtained a loan to pay off all my debt including this student loan account. I received a paid in full letter  from ACS/Suntrust a week or so later.

Imagine my surprise when in June 2007 I checked my credit reports and found that ACS had reported this as a charge-off/claim filed with the government/derogatory account!

I disputed with the credit bureaus and they came back as “verified-no change.”

My problem is that ACS/Suntrust still has this account listed as a charge off as of Nov. 2007!!! It also seems that the “charge-off” date keeps moving forward month by month??

I contacted the Ombudsman from the U.S. Dept. of Education who informed me that ACS/Suntrust admitted to incorrectly reporting this account and a promise was made to fix their error. The problem is the account is still listed as Derogatory/charge-off/Claim filed with the government as of Nov. 2007!!! I got ACS to send me a copy of the e-Oscar report but it is coded and I do not know any of these codes??

This account has been paid in full with no lates for almost 6 months but ACS is still listing it as a charge-off.

I have worked very hard to clean up my credit.  This item I am sure is really dragging down my score. I have almost perfect credit in the past two years except for this account!! I have been in touch with ACS/Suntrust numerous times with MANY promises to fix their error but still no luck.

Any ideas??

Robin (more…)

Thank you so much for the great website!  Not only does it have A LOT of useful information, it has really given me that push to start taking action! 

I wish I would have known about this a few years back, so I could have negotiated some pay for deletes.  Nevertheless…

Well, I have a few questions for you.  I’m sure they won’t stump you, but even after reading through the blogs I’m still unsure.

I have 7 student loans in the negative items in my credit report (through Wells Fargo).  The status shows: “Transferred, closed/Claim filed with government.”
Date of Status: 05/2003
Creditor’s Statement: “Student loan permanently assigned to government.”

Am I correct in thinking this means default?

Now, I consolidated all of my student loans that year with Direct Loan (I think it shows as 08/2003). Is there anyway to get those old ones off of there?  Or even to change the status?

I’ve read about rehabbing student loans, is that the only way to go (or does it even apply here) in this case?

Thank you again!! 

Sincerely,
Grace (more…)

Hi there!  I am interested in posting a question for response.  I don’t know if I am just supposed to write the question or wait for approval to post.  So, I will just ask here!  Sorry, if it is in the wrong spot.  I actually have a few issues that I am totally confused about so I will mention each.  Any help will be greatly appreciated!

I have recently had some money come available to pay off some looming old debt that is continuing to ruin my credit.  I have read through many of the blogs and had so many questions answered!  One major issue I have is whether or not duplicate entries are hurting my score.  For example:  I had 3 credit cards with capital one many years ago.  They were all in good standing and I ended up consolidating them.  I lost my job and ended up getting slaughtered of course with the debt and although I have paid portions of the capital one debt (they separated it out as all bad debts on my credit report). They have charged off everything and I get the random horrible collectors that harass me.  Anyway, it is showing up like 5 times on my credit report and then 3 separate collection agencies all over the same issue.  Is there anyway to get it consolidated into just the one account prior to me paying them money?

Next up, I have a ton of student loans, none of which I ever recall being delinquent as I have been in school nearly non-stop for 10 years.  Yet, they are showing up as 120 day lates clear back in 2005.  Not to mention, there is about a billion separate entries (20) and of course they are ALL saying the 120 day late.  I have since graduated and had them all consolidated into one payment that is current.  Can I get rid of the other million entries?  

Last question…I promise…I was married 3 years ago to a person with perfect credit and I have done everything in my power to not let my credit hurt his.  I am trying to rebuild my credit as quickly as possible and have no revolving accounts or trade accounts.  We have been living off of his credit.  I am going to do as I read in the blog and get a couple secured cards. But, I was told recently that I should get added to a couple of my husbands trade accounts that have a long history of perfect pays as it will boost my score…is that correct.  I DO NOT want to harm his credit.  I haven’t even reported to any CRA that I was married out of fear that it would somehow hurt his credit.  Any advice would be revered!

Thanks-  Sarah (more…)

I had a defaulted perkins loan with a college here in Florida which I worked out with the school to rehabilitate. It is off my report as a negative account.

Last week I get a call from a lady at the university saying that they were checking their files and found that there is a civil judgment against me. Huh?

She said there was a judgment made against me in February 2004. She also said it’s recorded so it should be on my credit report in the public records information.

I have been checking my credit report every 2 months for the past 3 years and have never once seen anything about a judgment. I barely even have any inquiries. I searched on a couple clerk of the court and public records websites and the only public records I found were two traffic tickets from 2003 and 2006.

I have never received a subpoena and never received any court information. It was with the same lawyers the lady said had filed the suit that I worked out the Perkins rehabilitation. Why would they work to rehabilitate the Perkins loan and not say anything about the judgment when the lady says the judgment is 4 times as much as the perkins?

What is my course of action? With this site’s help, I have done well to raise my credit score from a low of 520 to 670 in less than 2 years. What can I do if they decide that they will put it on my credit reports from now on?

This is gnawing at me.

Thank you for this website. You are a God send.

Gordon (more…)

Giving someone the courage to press on despite credit reporting mayhem:  priceless.  Thank you, thanks, and ever thanks for your very informative insights and commentaries!  You basically helped jumpstart my repair that had been going so-so b4 I was lucky enough to come across your site, now it’s going great!

I’m actually already back in somewhat decent shape thanks to your sage advise CR wise except for some pesky little 120s, 90s, etc. (due to illness and ignorance) that appear on my report from an old student loan.  Despite this Experian currently notes my plus score 708=low medium risk because all of my accounts in the past several years are current, no charge offs, bankruptcies, etc. but my interest rates are still astronomical partly because high balances on cards and a mostly very young accounts except 1 which is 5 years old but things could be so much worse, even though my fico is only 617 I’m thankful…

Anyway, my school, gotta love ‘em, agreed to pull my loan from collections so i am in repayment now, (well almost, 1st payment due next month) they asked for 12 months consecutive timely payments to bring it current, however i read here that the NCLC revised its guidelines to 9 consecutive timely payments in ten months to rehab so i put in a request to see if they were willing to change the language of the executed rehab agt. to reflect this-haven’t heard back yet.  Do you think they will consider my request?

My other question is this:  since the loan was pulled from the CA the CA sent me a letter saying contritely ‘we’re not going contact you again, you won’t here from us again about this, peace out, we regret it-our bad’.  The problem is prior to saying sorry they played racquet ball with my inquiries leaving 4 hards in just over a year, yikes!  Do you think they’ll remove them or convert them to softs, which is what they really are anyway, just as a consumer courtesy (who am I kidding, right?) since they agreed to bounce and leave me alone in writing anyway?  I know technically they can leave hards but also should have verified upon request and they never did this and since they are not in the picture going forward why not take some baggage they doled out with them?  I’m curious what’s in it for them at this point to continue to falsely indicate on my report that I opened up a new account with them or their assignees as a new credit transaction by leaving a series of miscoded but unfortunately not illegal hards that will last two years each -revenge?  So I sent them a CMRRR  a polite letter saying look you placed these hards while completely ignoring my requests for verification please remove them (I sent several verification request letters but only 1 CMRRR and it was way after the 30 days rule.)  I didn’t know who they were collecting for because I couldn’t even get that far with them, they were real mean and condescending and they were bullying and menacing but never cooperative, funny thing is if they had said who they were collecting for I would have sent money so in a way I’m lucky they were so uncooperative…do I have any chance that they’ll remove the hards b4 my rehab work clears them automatically in the next year give or take?  I wondered also does it give me any leverage whatsoever with the CRA (who notes the inquiries as ‘valid’ even after I disputed them) that I have the letter from the CA saying they are sorry and will stop it and the CA has a deplorable record of consumer abuses and
an unsatisfactory record with the BBB as it turns out as well…
Now my student accounts office says all negative items will be stricken if I satisfactorily complete rehab but then that’s about another year of astronomical credit card interest rates(19 – 21% APR)if they won’t remove the inquiries.

I pay way above the minimum on CCs every month to try to bring them down to zero in say the next 6 – 12 months and without this one loan being reported as 3 separate derogatory marks against me, my CR would be virtually unblemished accept for card balances about 50%+ of the max limit on 3 cards which I’m paying down and  2 are newish cards … should I just be happy I’m in rehab and getting back on my feet and forego the urge to try cast off what i call the “bag of tricks” hard inquiries from the CA which they’ve left me as a nasty little gift?  I am still working on not being emotional with money/debt etc even writing this note I feel so muddled and unclear because the whole thing makes me feel so ashamed, inadequate etc. but I hope you were able to get the gist of it- 

Best regards,
Gorem (more…)

The Department of Education amended the Federal Student Aid Program with Federal Register (Vol. 71, No. 211) published on November 1, 2006.  This was an amendment to the Higher Education Act and good news for borrowers with a rocky payment history with Federal Student Loans.  As previously noted on Student Loan Skeleton, loan rehabilitation requirements have been reduced from twelve on-time payments to a requirement of only ‘nine out of ten’.  The following commentary is also encouraging ammo from the publication: (more…)