The title is very vague - but bear with me as I try to explain it all. These days I am totally debt free, active duty military, and saved up enough money to finally afford to buy a nice house for my fiancee and I in the Virginia Beach area. Except, my FICO scores of 525 are keeping me from getting a mortgage. Why? Because Sallie Mae improperly (and nearly criminally) handled my loans back a few years ago. Here's a good timeline of events (mostly compiled now that I checked NSLDS):
8/8/08 - Was laid off from my job, had to live on friends' couches to avoid being homeless. I had been making payments for 4-5 months on my loans since then, after deferment ended.
Around 9/15/08 - Call Sallie Mae and tell them I am unemployed, ask for forbearance. They agree after taking a ~$100 payment that I really couldn't afford to give them. They don't put ALL loans on forbearance, and miss 2 loans totaling ~$4500.
2/15/09 - Fly out to California to live with some friends and do some job hunting, as the state of MA was totally trashed in ways of jobs and economy. Military recruiting east of the Mississippi was dried up as well.
7/02/09 - Approved for enlistment into the Navy, set to ship out ASAP.
8/15/09 timeframe - Apparently Sallie Mae moves all my loans out of forbearance and never call/email/write to say so, and never mentioned it in previous calls.
9/10/09 - Officially active duty and step foot into Great Lakes, IL boot camp.
9/27/10 - ALL loans move into default, again no email or written contact.
10/02/10 - Deploy overseas immediately
12/10/10 - Learn all loans are in default after spending hours to secure a phone call from overseas. Sallie Mae rep hears I am deployed and apologizes profusely. I email proof of deployment and loans have some interest and all collection fees reversed. I shell out ~22,000 in a single check.
12/22/10 - Final loan payment letter comes in. I am told "credit bureaus will be notified of full payment within 30 days"
Fast forward to current day: 11 of 12 loans are listed as "filed for government collection" with a $0 balance, but with multiple 120+ days late remarks from 2009-2010.
I also learned recently they could have offered loan rehabilitation, but never did. I had all money to pay off the loans, but if making 10 payments in a row would have cleared it up, I would have taken that option. Based on the fact I paid it all upfront I should have all loans "rehabbed" and no charges filed - especially since I was active duty, deployed, and never informed of such situations happening! Not to mention they never put 2 loans into forbearance which throws everything off as well. After contacting Sallie Mae twice via email (I am deployed again and cannot call easily), I have gotten no response. That was emailing the Advocate email AND CCing the CEO on emails.
So now I am close to having my retained attorney chase after them, because it is unacceptable how everything is being handled. The biggest heartbreak past not being able to buy a house - I am due for a security clearance screening soon, and I will be denied with "current government collections" showing up. I have proof of all the errors on their part, and that I made full repayment on my part, but that isn't enough to fully avoid my career being ruined.
So is getting my attorney involved really worth it? Or am I on the right track to recovery? I mean it is covered in federal law about loan rehab and it was never offered or explained to me, past the obvious mis-handling of my loans from 2009-2010. See this link for appropriate reference as I pointed out to my attorney as well, who is shocked Sallie Mae never talked about these options: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Student-Loans/Sallie-Mae-Customer-Advocate/td-p/565474/page/2
[EDIT] Reformatted for people to read without going cross-eyed!
Starting Score: 565
