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After working so hard for the past couple years to rebuild my credit and FINALLY having scores ranging from 640-717 consistently for the past year and having 100% ON TIME PAYMENTS since 2008, I am DEVASTATED at what happened to my credit score, and am hoping there is a way to correct it because it will take YEARS to get my scores back up and it is just not fair!
Here is the situation....I have a lot of federal student loans for my schooling that I never consolidated because I am still in school and was told not to since I'm still in school and/or always qualified for forbearance if not enrolled in a particular semester. In August, I received a notification from Credit Karma stating that I have 15 accounts now being reported 90 days late and my score dropped OVER 80 POINTS!!!! I never received anything from the Loan Dept., and immediately called them to get it resolved. I did, and am "current" on ALL student loans now, however the damage has been done. My score dropped to 578 in Aug. and now is up to 591 in Sept. but I want it back to where it was!!! THIS IS NOT FAIR! Because of so many small loans which shows as individual accounts, my score is getting affected 15x what it should have been and for something that I was not even aware was due and immediately cleared up once I found out!
Is there anything I can do to fix my credit score? It will take years for this negative info to go away...there went all my hard work, what a joke! I'm so mad and discouraged! On my credit report it states that all those accounts will be in positive status by 4/2017....they are current now, this is just ridiculous!
ANY AND ALL SUGGESTIONS AND GUIDANCE regarding this matter is GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!! THANK YOU!!
You could try disputing it with the CRAs. Its a 50/50 shot. IMO, do the dispute around the holidays, if they get no response within 30 days from the creditor, they will have to delete the TL or fix the problem according to the FCRA.
I"m really sorry to hear this. The best suggestion that I have to make is that you should re-post this in the "Student Loans" area of the forum---I think that you'll receive more solid and comprehensive counsel there about how to deal with your lender and their mis-reporting of your 90-day lates. I seriously doubt that trying to convince the CRAs to delete, without some corroboration by your lender about this being in error, will be successful. Good luck!.
@trishdadish wrote:
I"m really sorry to hear this. The best suggestion that I have to make is that you should re-post this in the "Student Loans" area of the forum---I think that you'll receive more solid and comprehensive counsel there about how to deal with your lender and their mis-reporting of your 90-day lates. I seriously doubt that trying to convince the CRAs to delete, without some corroboration by your lender about this being in error, will be successful. Good luck!.
I agree, have you spoke with anyone high up from the lender about the situation?
Actually I have experience with this, after 10+ calls with sallie mae and the DoE you basically cannot do a thing. You cannot combine the loans in order to have it report as a single late, they will not delete, and they basically will not modify anything unless it is flat out incorrect. I have tried for the last year to do any of the above, because I had 3 student loans that did the same as you, the response I got was that they sent mail stating it was coming due, and it is my fault for not changing my address/putting in incorrect information for me to be able to get the mail.
I still call them every couple weeks hoping I will get someone that will make an exception and take it off, because if I had defaulted and been 150 day or more late, after 6 months they would delete everything, so I am being epenlized for taking the responsibility and paying what I had to as soon as I was informed that it was due. :-(
Did you take 1 semester off? If so, 6 months from then, they will try to start collecting because it is viewed that you stopped going to school. However, I find schools are often slow at letting lenders know you actually went back. If you did not take off, make sure that your school never changed your enrollment status at some point without you knowing.
If you took anytime off from school, then I do not think there is much you can do. I think it states somewhere in your loan agreements (it did with most of mine) that it is up to the borrower (and not the school) to contact the loan holders if you go back to school.
That being said, if none of the above are valid, you should open up a dispute with all 3 of the credit bureaus. Make sure you have your loan agreements on hand as well as proof you have been enrolled at least half time (above 6 credits). I am pretty sure anything below 6 credits changes your status to part time and I am not sure if you still qualify for forbearance below 6 credits.
What do you mean when you say you got it resolved? Were you actually 90 days late and you made payments to bring it current? Did you forget to request forbearance and then put the loans in forbearance? If this is misreported, I would think it wouldn't be too hard to fix. But if you really went 90 days late, I don't think there's anything you can do about the fact that it reports as 15 separate loans rather than one loan. You'll probably just have to write GW letters.
Who are you dealing with? If it's Sallie Mae, and it was their mistake, they will fix it. You will have to google for things like "Sallie Mae CEO" to get some names. Once someone higher up gets on your case, they will look into it. (I know from experience). Don't bother with the 1-800 number. Waste of time.
I'm sorry to say, but I have had no success with getting SL lates deleted; they have to age off. I hate the way student loans report, btw. Even in consolidation, I still have 4 separate student loans reporting. AND, when you consolidate, they close the old ones and open brand new ones, so I now have 4 shiny new loans dragging down my AAoA, when some of them are from 15 years ago. Point being, consolidation isn't going to help you anyway.
Lesson I learned from student loans: It is my responsibility to keep up with my finances. It is not the lenders (or creditors) job to keep me informed.
I know it stinks, but it's not "not fair". It's a learning opportunity for you.
That said, write your GW letters anyway because you never know when you might land on the right person's desk.