Debt Validation

**BigTony** · 10-14-2010, 01:21 AM

Has anyone ever gone through a Debt Validation process ? Any feedback or suggestions..

BT

**kita** · 10-14-2010, 12:31 PM

I am not sure if this is what you are looking for but this is my story.

I have been to college. Several times. I often think of them as reincarnations. I had several student loans from each incarnations. Also during this time I paid off student loans from the first incarnation.
Some stuff happened and I defaulted on the loans. Then I got my act together and did the habilitation for the 2nd incarnation loans through Sallie Mae. (Honestly, Sallie Mae has never done me wrong. This appears to be an abberation.)
After clearing up my stuff with my college, it bacame clear that there was still a 1 incarnation loan out there. I paid on it for a while but let it default again because I was convinced that it was paid off and I couldn't trace where the loan had been for 15-20 years.
When they started to garnish my wages, I had to get serious again. I asked for a history of the loan. (This was a company I had never worked with before) I got copies of my origination papers. I explained that I wanted to know where the loan was for decades. I admitted that I took out the loan but wanted to know how many payments had been applied. They sent more copies of the origination papers.
FINALLY, I had a few days off work and I started to go through all the papers I had saved in my life. I am a bit of a packrat although I am a disorganized one. I found copies of my origination papers. I never found a final copy of the paid off loans but what I found was a checkbook from 1985. (Way past its trash date by most standards). I was clearly paying on TWO sets of loans. The loans were for the same amount but because of the difference in terms I was under a payment lowering plan for one set of loans but not the other.
By looking at the checks, I was able to identify who I was paying at the time. I also found a letter of "your loan has been sold to". After finding another checkbook, I was able to identify what my payment was later. Finally I had to use Wikipedia to find out where the various banks had been sold and taken over. I could now trace WHERE the loan had been all that time. I called those banks and asked for a payment history. I got copies of my origination papers. (Yeah!!, I needed more of those)
By looking at a few of my old checkbooks and finally remembering a few odd things, I figured out about what I had paid on it and
I used bankrate to add interest and looked at allowed penalties from the government websites.
My number finally came within about three hundred dollars . They were right. Of course they didn't care about trying to prove it, but I felt honor-bound to pay it. So I did.

**BigTony** · 10-18-2010, 11:16 PM

Did you respond within the first 30 days of your first notice ?

**kita** · 10-20-2010, 11:03 AM

Not sure at which time the "first notice" would have been but trust me, I didn't respond to it.
The stuff that happened was:
I didn't pay on the loan after my last incarnation at school.
They began calling and dunning me.
At that point it was all my fault.
Then they contacted my roommate and discussed the loan with her.
She had a "Come to Jesus" conversation with me about student loans and paying bills.
If I had been smarter I would have listened to her. If I had been more adamant, I would have called a lawyer and sued them.
Either would have been a better response to what was clearly an illegal action on their part.
Instead I called them. And chewed them out. It was the worst thing I could have done. I let them know I was pissed. And yet did nothing about it. They quit calling. And didn't call for ten years. I am guessing there is a statute of limitations for a lawsuit. And it is ten years. Then they threw it in default. And because I had not kept good records, I was at a loss. But student loans NEVER die. They drop off your credit report (which confused me even more because I was starting to get a handle on my financial life) but they still exist.
So nope, hadn't responded to any notices for a very long time.

**BigTony** · 10-21-2010, 01:28 AM

They talked to your Roommate about your Debt??? Law Suite

**Palooka** · 10-21-2010, 01:35 AM

Originally Posted by BigTony

They talked to your Roommate about your Debt??? Law Suite

Gotta have money to sue....

**kita** · 10-21-2010, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by Palooka

Gotta have money to sue....

I don't know if I could have gotten a personal injury lawyer to sue for 50% or whatever but I was a little gutless for that. If I had known about Dave Ramsey I think I could have used one of his people. (Although he might have been in his bankruptcy stage at the time....1996 or so) I try not to think about what my life would be like now if I didn't have the nine thousand plus in debt from that choice.
The funny thing is that I was much more frugal than the roommate, not paying the SL had to do with other personal issues at the moment. (I was mad at the world...don't get me started). I didn't relaize that because she was middle class (and Chinese-American) her family had a lot more experiance in taking careful care of the paperwork and accounting side of finances. I was poor due to an irresponsible father and was good at stretching a dollar for food etc. I can also remember conversations with her about whether Charmin was better TP. She had been suckered into the advertising and finally figured out that it shreds and not all TP shreds!!
Oh well.