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I am sorry to hear about all these hard times you are having. As soon as I saw you had Great Lakes as one of your student loan servicers, I thought I would chime in here as I also have them. Try applying for "Income Based Repayment" programs to get your payments down. Some cases they can even get your payment down to zero!
@Anonymous wrote:So is it your advice to just ask the opinion of a lawyer first before doing anything?? I feel terrible that I have not even written the judge yet like the lady at the courthouse advised Friday. I am just so scared at this point. I just know I cannot afford a lawyer. Thank you for taking the time to respond and offer advice!!
@Kree wrote:Contact a lawyer to help with this. Not being served properly is a pretty big deal and you could get punitive damages from both Capital 1 as well as from whoever "served" you.
There is a good chance that a lawyer would do this work on contingency. They only get paid when they win the case, because lawyer costs can be part of the lawsuit. This is also a good sign of a strong case. Lawyers like making money, so if one won't do it on contingency, then it might not be worth persuing legal action.
Thank you so much for this!! I will look more into this tonight when I am home!
I appreciate this more than you know!
@Anonymous wrote:
Pnrbma:
Sorry, I missed your answer. First, there is a repayment calculator on the Federal Aid site.
https://studentloans.gov/myDirectLoan/mobile/repayment/repaymentEstimator.action
Plug in your income and loan info (or just log in) and this will give you a better idea of what you can be paying over the short and long term.
For now, if I were you I would be applying for one of the Income-driven repayment plans. All qualify for loan forgiveness (if you don't qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, etc there are these forgiveness options, just with longer repayment.) The most popular are the Income-based repayment plan and REPAY (or PAY depending on your loan years).
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/understand/plans
They are based off of your discretionary income, 10% for REPAY and 10/15% for IBR. Forgiveness is at 20 years of (240) payments or 25 for graduate loans. There are two other plans but I think the monthly cost is higher. If you're married, they will take both income for REPAY. Switching plans will also capitalize your interest, but if there calculator says you'll have money forgiven imo ignore it. (Plus the calculator is wrong; it's based on an era where people got annual, significant raises.) Given what you're saying, I highly suspect your payments will be $0. When you fill out the form, select a plan. The servicer will often *not* select the lowest plan, I've learned to never check the option for them to select it. The quickest method is the IRS upload. Except for maybe the first time, I do not recommend this. Instead I do the paycheck method. You upload a scanned copy of the hand-signed application and a scanned copy of your income to the servicer directly. I think Great Lakes also has an email? The fine print is they will set your payment for a whole year based on your income docs so choose your lowest ones possible within the range they accept.
You apply, then get a monthly payment about that is good for 1 year. Before that is up, you recertify by submitting you income info, very easy to do if you use the IRS method (5min). If at any time your situation changes and you qualify for a lower payment, recertify at any the, getting a new payment for another whole year. Always save your paperwork. I even log my calls. The servicers are terrible about the details imo. CFPB can be your friend.
Feel free to PM me. I will walk you through any of this. It's very simple and it can take such a Weight off your shoulders.
Good luck with the court stuff.
I am currently on the websites you listed working on this! I work for a University - have for ten years. I wonder if I qualify for the public forgiveness?? What do you know about the Employment Certification Form?? The link that says it has more info does not work.
@Anonymous wrote:
Pnrbma:
Sorry, I missed your answer. First, there is a repayment calculator on the Federal Aid site.
https://studentloans.gov/myDirectLoan/mobile/repayment/repaymentEstimator.action
Plug in your income and loan info (or just log in) and this will give you a better idea of what you can be paying over the short and long term.
For now, if I were you I would be applying for one of the Income-driven repayment plans. All qualify for loan forgiveness (if you don't qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, etc there are these forgiveness options, just with longer repayment.) The most popular are the Income-based repayment plan and REPAY (or PAY depending on your loan years).
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/understand/plans
They are based off of your discretionary income, 10% for REPAY and 10/15% for IBR. Forgiveness is at 20 years of (240) payments or 25 for graduate loans. There are two other plans but I think the monthly cost is higher. If you're married, they will take both income for REPAY. Switching plans will also capitalize your interest, but if there calculator says you'll have money forgiven imo ignore it. (Plus the calculator is wrong; it's based on an era where people got annual, significant raises.) Given what you're saying, I highly suspect your payments will be $0. When you fill out the form, select a plan. The servicer will often *not* select the lowest plan, I've learned to never check the option for them to select it. The quickest method is the IRS upload. Except for maybe the first time, I do not recommend this. Instead I do the paycheck method. You upload a scanned copy of the hand-signed application and a scanned copy of your income to the servicer directly. I think Great Lakes also has an email? The fine print is they will set your payment for a whole year based on your income docs so choose your lowest ones possible within the range they accept.
You apply, then get a monthly payment about that is good for 1 year. Before that is up, you recertify by submitting you income info, very easy to do if you use the IRS method (5min). If at any time your situation changes and you qualify for a lower payment, recertify at any the, getting a new payment for another whole year. Always save your paperwork. I even log my calls. The servicers are terrible about the details imo. CFPB can be your friend.
Feel free to PM me. I will walk you through any of this. It's very simple and it can take such a Weight off your shoulders.
Good luck with the court stuff.
As I am filling out the form it says "Not all of your loans are eligible for the plans marked (*) above, so estimates are shown using only the eligible loan balance. You can consolidate your FFEL loans to become eligible for PSLF or other Income-Driven Repayment plans such as REPAYE."
Do you have any experience with this?