ACS - late payments - dispute or GW?

[Anonymous]

Hi All,
In May 2012 I was let go from my employer. I filed for WI Unemployment comp and also called ACS to go into deferment. They sent paperwork which I filled out, sent back along with a copy of unemployment verification which they required.
About four or five months later started receiving nasty grams from them about being behind payments. I called and turns out they didn't have me on deferment.
So we went through the paperwork thing again, ACS told me the deferment would be active back to may 2012.
In May 2013 they sent an email for me to resume payment, which I did, no problems.
in January 2014 I pulled my free credit reports and found ACS reporting me 60, 90, 120, 150 days past due. Making matters worse, they split subsidized and unsubsidized loans into 2 accounts so my CR shows me being 150 days behind on 2 accounts, not 1.

When I applied for a credit card in January 14 with my credit union, they reluctantly gave me a card with $1000 limit, also sent me a letter with explanations of key factors adversely affecting my score. Besides the lack of revolving credit, it also mentioned "serious delinquency", which I assume refers to the ACS student loan.

I expect to apply for a car loan within the next year, and a mortgage within three years. I would like to try to get the late payments removed from my credit reports if possible.

Is it normal when in deferment it shows on credit reports as late payments?

I'm not sure if I should try GW letters to ACS to remove the late payments reported, or go for dispute with credit reporting agancies since I did (or thought I did) file for deference which is in my right based on the terms of the loans.

Thanks

[SCF]

Did they say why the deferment was not filed?  Ultimately, it was your responsibility to continue making payments until you received notification that the deferment was effective.  Did you ever receive a notice that you could stop making payments when you originally filed in 2012?

Retroactive deferments do not always remove the late payments, though they do bring the loan current (so that it does not continue to report late through the term of the deferment).  If ACS gave you reason to believe that the lates would be removed, or that they had made an error in processing your deferment (especially if they told you that you could stop making payments in 2012), then I would dispute and provide the proof/documents to support your version of events.

If there was no mistake on ACS part, they are not required to remove the lates, but a GW may convince them to.

[Anonymous]

Hi SCF,

When I called them the second time they only told me the paperwork had not been received, but I didn't think to ask a lot of questions. To be honest some of the specifics are a bit foggy now and I had a lot of stuff going on at the time. I was told when I called them the first time they would contact me if there were problems with my paperwork. I don't think I received a notice to stop making payments the first or second time. After the second call and resending the papers I kept an eye on my online account and saw it was in deferment a few weeks after sending in the papers.

I think I assumed the deferment being retroactive would wipe out the lates, I did not specifically ask about that though.

I think you put it in perspective for me though, I think it would be tough to dispute without any documentation to back up my side. Hopefully I don't have to do deferment again but if I do I'm documenting everything; phone calls, names, dates, times, sending certified mail. Seems you have to CYA and not make assumptions.

I see some threads about specific contacts for GW letters. Does anyone have a contact at ACS they could PM me.

Thanks SCF

[Anonymous]

Good luck. ACS is extremely hard to work with. They screwed me over on s deferment also and have multiple reported lates now. I since took a consolidation loan and paid them off. They still won't help me out.

[Anonymous]

That sucks. I've been lurking about and seems some have had success getting ACS to remove late payments, but sounds extremely difficult. How long have you been in contact with them?