SUCCESS getting student loan lates removed!

[sdilley14]

I have finally gotten a little bit of success in this whole credit repair process.  After sending a couple GW letters to Great Lakes Higher Education and promptly getting rejected, I did some research, found the email address of the CEO, COO, and the ombudsman office, emailed all of them, and I just now received the following response to my letter...

RE: Student Loan Late Payments - Acct. XXXXX
Message Redirected by Tumbleweed EMF.

Original Recipients:
To: "'Shane XXXXXCc:

Shane,

I wanted to let you know that on March 23, 2012, we instructed all three Credit Reporting Agencies to remove all of our (Great Lakes) adverse credit reporting for lender number 824XXX (Citibank N.A.).

Thank you for contacting us and for giving us an opportunity to assist you. Should you require additional assistance, please contact us at 866 486 XXXX.

Sincerely,
Todd XXXX

Associate Ombudsman


From: Shane XXXX

Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 4:24 PM
To: ombudsman
Subject: Student Loan Late Payments - Acct. XXXXXX

Greetings,

I am writing you as I have already written several letters and I feel that I am starting to exhaust every avenue available to me.

I will get directly to the point. I have a student loan that was opened through GLHEC/Citibank that I opened in 02/2007 (account #XXXXX). That loan was closed in 02/2011 as I was able to get all of my student loans refinanced. However, I have a number of late payments that are showing up on my credit report from this loan. These late payments occurred because I was in a bad car accident in 2007 in which I broke my neck. As a result, I was forced to leave school. At the time I was completely unaware and was never educated on when these student loans came out of deferment, and I was never counseled on the options to keep the loan in deferment/forbearance while I recovered from my injury and started working enough to make the payments. After several months of going back and fourth with the collections department, I finally discovered the option to put the loan into forbearance. While the loan was in forbearance I was able to get a full time job and now that the loan is out of forbearance I have set up automatic payments and have been paying back the loan as originally agreed.

I am not disputing the fact that these payments were late. I am simply writing this letter in hopes of receiving a good will gesture from GLHEC. I have worked extremely hard to get back on my feet and repair my credit. I am at a point now where I am attempting to buy a house. Having these late payments on my credit report is making it very difficult for me to get financing for a home. As I said, I understand why these late payments are reporting, but I do not feel that they truly reflect my credit worthiness and my true payment pattern. Things would have been much different if I had been counseled and made aware of my repayment options when the loan came out of deferment.

I am asking, as a good will gesture, that these late payments please be removed from all three credit bureaus. I have taken the time to educate myself on how to avoid this from happening in the future, I have taken responsibility, and I have worked extremely hard at bringing all of my loans current and keeping up a steady pattern of positive payments. I know a lot of borrowers have struggled immensely at making timely payments and settling on fair repayment agreements with lenders over the last few years, and I would like to think that I am in the minority of people who have taken the time and effort to straighten my situation out with little to no help from anyone but myself. Hopefully my efforts will be rewarded and you can see fit to remove these late payments from the three credit reports.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

SO glad to finally have these late payments removed.  I'm very curious to see how they will impact my score.  Granted, they occured back in 2007-2008, but there were at least 6-7 of them reporting and they were 90-120 days behind. :/

It's just nice to finally win one and be rewarded for the effort I've put in trying to get my credit repaired.

[2NE1]

that's great news! congrats!

[sdilley14]

Thanks! 

If they instructed them to remove the lates on March 23, how long do you think I should wait to check the credit reports to see if they have been removed?

[Booner72]

Good Letter.

I think they should be gone inside a week if they already did send the Universal Data Form to the CRA's, which it sounds like they did.

[Anonymous]

I recently got 60 days late mark removed with Great Lakes also.  I was 60 days late then I decided to apply for a deferment and it was approved within a day, I then emailed customer service asking if they would kindly remove the late marks if I continue to keep the account in good standing. Then I got this reply below, I'm still don't understand the whole "backdating deferment" but I'm just happy that the late marks are finally gone from my report.

Thank you for your recent correspondence regarding the credit reporting of your Great Lakes student loan(s). 

Great Lakes Educational Loan Services Inc. is required by the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, to report the status on all serviced Title IV loans. The Fair Credit Reporting Act, as amended, requires that we report this information accurately and objectively. 

Our credit reporting process communicates monthly with Trans Union, Experian and Equifax. We began reporting your account on behalf of your lender at the time servicing began. Monthly reporting continues until your account is no longer serviced or is paid in full. 

In addition to reporting the status of the account, we are required to report delinquency data whenever warranted. Balances and amounts and dates of recent payments are also reported. Although the delinquency reported was correct, due to the backdating of your deferment, we have instructed all three Credit Reporting Agencies to remove the delinquency from January 2012.

This is no guaranty that correctly reported delinquencies can or will be removed in the future. Borrowers are responsible for all scheduled payments until they receive notice in writing that payments have been deferred or suspended. 

Please call us at 800-236-4300 with any questions regarding this information. Any of our Borrower Services Representatives will be happy to assist you. You can also view your account information on our website at www.mygreatlakes.org (http://www.mygreatlakes.org/)

Thank you.

[sdilley14]

Nice work!  My guess is that they are "back dating" the deferrment to when you would have first been eligible for it, which, in all likliehood, would have been before you incurred any late payments.

[Anonymous]

sdilley14,

Congrats!!!

And that is a super example of a GW letter.  Nicely done - glad you posted it, and the results, here.

[sdilley14]

Thank you!  And everything in the letter is true.  I think behing honest, taking accountability, and showing that you have made the effort to correct your mistakes will go a long way in getting in the good graces of your creditors.  And of course you have to be persistent and get your story in front of the most "high up" person at the organization.

[timkrof]

THAT IS AWESOME NEWS!!!!!

CONGRATS!!!!!!!

I have been trying for years now to get some lates removed with them.  I found the email for the ombudsman but could only find the name and phone for the CEO and COO.

Could you PM their email addresses?

Thanks!

[on_a_mission2]

Sdilley14~ Congrats on getting your lates removed. Could you please pm me the email address of the person you contacted at glhec?? I too am trying to get some lates removed. Thank you so much!