Arg....so, I think I screwed the pooch on this one......

[AREric]

Hey everyone,

So I think I screwed the pooch on this one, and would love some advice.

My Credit isn't WAY horrible.  Mainly, I owed $1,500 to Capital One, $500 to Wal-Mart/GE, $19,000 in Student Loans, and a couple of small $100 debts.

I had been dealing with Capital One for awhile, and they finally garnished me.  This debt will be paid off through garnishments in a couple of weeks.

I recently received a promotion, went from Part Time to Full Time, and got almost a $3 an hour raise.  My fiance and I are looking into renting a house (rather than an apartment) and are looking to get our lives on track and settled down.

Included in this was paying off our debts.  With Capital One almost being paid off, I was going to make a settlement offer with Wal-Mart GE, pay off the small $100ish debts, and sign up for Income Based Repayment with Student Loans.

Literally the DAY after I received my promotion, ConServe called my work, asked for me by name, and our front worker transferred the call to me.  Wouldn't tell me anything unless I verified I was Eric Gibbs born in July of 1990.  Of course, I told them not to call my place of employment and hung up.

I now know that ConServe is related to my Student Loans.  I received a piece of mail stating that my $19,000 loan is now $24,000 after fees, and included was Loan Rehab paperwork.

Could someone give me a little advice on what the best options are for someone trying to settle all their debts, and who was wanting to do the low monthly income based payments but now got sent to ConServe?

Again, my plan was...

Capital One $1,500 (Almost paid off due to garnishments)

Wal-Mart $500 (Intended to call them and settle, asking for a pay to delete, but paying off either way)

Student Loans $19,000 or $24,000 (Was going to sign up for Income Based Re-Payments but I guess I waited too long)

Pay off the small $100ish debts.

[bahbahd]

It sounds like your loans were in repayment and you are over or around 240 days late. You could have defaulted on your loans.  You should call your loan servicing agent and your guarantor to see if you can be put on administrative forbearance till you can get the appropriate paperwork in.  Unfortunately you might have missed your window to have deferred payments.

[SCF]

Hop on to the National Student Loan Data System and find the status of your loan or loans.  If they are in default, you'll need to work with the collection agency that they were assigned to - it sounds like this is ConServe.

You'll have the option of either doing a rehab, which takes 9 months, but improves your credit profile when completed, or a loan consolidation which removes the default immediately but doesn't remove any negative reporting from your credit.  Since you're already settling in for the rebuilding process, I would reccomend pursuing rehab.  Get a reasonable payment amount set for your 9 payments, and then you'll be able to choose IBR when you're done as you originally planned.

Rehab will remove the CA reporting and all of the default remarks from your credit report, which will help you on your process of rebuilding.

[Luscher]

^^^^^+100