Forgiveness of Late Payments????

[jazzyvar84]

I have several student loan accounts that are reported as being over 120 days late. These lates are from 2017, 16,  and 13. I was making payments to a company who offered me lower payments and a ten year agreement for educators. Needless to say, I was being scammed for over a year and a half. When I realized it, I immediately changed all my bank information and reached out to the student loan company (NELNET). Everyone I speak with tells me that they cannot remove the late payments becuase it was my fault. This is holding my credit score down. Does anyone have any experience and/or advice on having late payments removed. I really feel like I was the victim here, and no one seems to care. 

[dragontears]

I am really sorry you were scammed.
Unfortunately, if these are federal student loans your odds of getting the lates removed is close to 0. You might get lucky and find a synthetic rep that will do a good will deletion but it is really rare.

[Anonymous]

Your only chance at removal is to send GW letters.  Lots of them.  I recommend checking out this thread for more information and ideas:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/The-Saturation-Technique-Best-GW-adjustment-o...

[jazzyvar84]

Thanks for your response! I read that, but could only find nine mailing addresses for Nelnet Student Loans, so I could only send nine unfortunately. 😞

[Anonymous]

9 isn't bad.  That's 9X the chance of a favorable result relative to the average person that just sends 1 letter.

[Aim_High]

Late payments stink. 

The good news is that they will eventually age-off after 7 years, even if Goodwill letters or other actions don't help.

I personally think they stay on the reports much too long.   I have had success with GW letters and had other lenders who would not budge.  My last 30-day late (which I protested twice due to extenuating circumstances) will age off my credit report shortly after a long 7 years.  That associated store is on my permanent do-not-shop list as a result.  It hasn't affected my credit score much for several years but it's irritating how long it takes to go away, especially when I felt I didn't deserve it.

It sounds like you may have grounds for a law suit and to file a police report if you were being scammed.  (And if you provide that documentation, it might force the credit bureau to remove the contested lates.)

It may not help much, but you are allowed to place comments in your credit reports regarding things like late payments which tell YOUR side of a contested story.  If nothing else, it might make you feel like you had done everything you could do. 

[dynamicvb]

Did you file a police report for the scam? Having that documentation may help possibly get someone to help you out, but the bottom line when dealing with Fed student loans, the chances of getting any negatives changed is pretty much nil.

[RobertEG]

The Higher Education Act includes specific requirments that delinquencies must be reported to the CRAs for certain types of federal student loans.  Reporting is mandatory, and thus optional, discretionary ("good-will") deletion is prohibited for such loans.

Additonally, the Higher Education Act also removes any of the normal credit report exclusion provisions under the FCRA for reported monthly delinquecnies and/or charge-offs for those types of federal student loans while the loan remains unpaid.

That means that the normal 7 year exclusion provisions set forth under the FCRA dont apply until the loan is paid.

As a separate issue, if the "scam" involved opening a loan using your identity that you did not authorize, then you can use the identity theft process under FCRA 605B to get any information regarding the alleged loan blocked from your credit report without any involvement of the creditor or any other party.  You need only file a police report and send a copy to the CRA as a request to block under the provisions of FCRA 605B.