Score dropped 115 points in a month, please help.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I am a newbie to this forum. A little background, I'm in my late-20's, have approximately $75,000 in student loans, 3 credit cards with about 50% utilization (1 of them consistently paid in full each month), paid-off auto loan. My FICO was hovering around 700 for the most part of last year. Long story short, my student loans with Sallie Mae were in defferment. I was not in the country, got back and spoke to a Sallie Mae representative about applying for forbearance. This happened before the 90 day late payment mark. The representative assured me that everything will be halted and nothing would be reported to the credit bureaus. Fast-forward about a week, I get a notification in my email saying that negative items have been reported to my credit report. I check, Sallie Mae reported 12 accounts as being past due 90 days (Yes, a bit too much to digest). It took my FICO scores from a consistent 699 to an average of 585 across the boards (EX, EQ, and TU). I tried calling Sallie Mae, the loans are transferred to Navient this month (a spinoff of Sallie Mae), they as expected are being uncooperative. I am just trying to figure out where should I start? 7 years is a very long time for these items to stay on the report. Can someone with experience please advise me, I would forever appreciate your help. Thank you. 

[0REDSOX7]

They should have a rehab program to help

Also, why not consolidate? Get 12 TLs down to one or two and lessen the impact on the future. For scoring purposes, one or two Installment Loans will be sufficient for scoring.

[Seangar]

You can only rehab if they are in default. I would def consolidate them asap though. Student loans are a rough beast to handle, they should really teach students about the impact they can have on ones credit score. What makes matters worse is that there are multiple tradelines.

I'll give you some background info on my success story. I had lates with greatlakes (they were orginally direct fed loans), I tried to dispute them, tried sending goodwill letters...nothing worked. But I did eventually get rid of the lates by consolidating all the loans. For some reason, this removed all my lates and showed good payment history. YMMV but it's worth a shot. If that doesnt work you're only other options would be to send a goodwill letter to salliemae and try contacting the ombudsman. Be specific about everything that happened and the gaurantees you were given. Best of luck, sorry about the score drop :/ Lates don't effect you for 7 years, each year they have less and less of an impact on your score...especially by year 2. 

[ABD]

Why, how were the lates removed??? I recently consolidated. I was told my Sallie Mae lates would remain. PLEASE tell me the secrets to get them removed. How did you do it? What was the timeline?

[Seangar]

My direct loans were given to Greatlakes not Salliemae (although my wifes were given to sallie).

1. I had 50 lates just from the direct loans. For these I just disputed them as never late and they were all removed to my surprise. I did this for my wifes direct loans as well, her lates were also removed.

2. Greatlakes/Salliemae is different, especially Salliemae. For my greatlakes loans, like I said I consolidated them which paid off my previous loans through greatlakes. After that I disputed those as never late, and they were removed and positive tradelines were shown. Like I said though, YMMV.

My wife has some lates on salliemae and I had her consolidate those loans through greatlakes. After the consolidation was processed, she disputed all of her salliemae lates from each cra. The disputes are still pending, but I'll let you know what the results are. 

The OP has a legitimate reason as to why his lates should not be reporting though. So if all else fails, send those GW letters

[ABD]

Thanks Seangar,  I just consolidated and Great Lakes is my servicer.  I have old lates with ACS/Wells Fargo, Sallie Mae, and Great Lakes.  Will dispute now.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys for responding, I am thinking of disputing these accounts. Let's see what happens. 

[LIGHTNIN]

tryingtomoveup,

Hi and Welcome to the forums.

I moved you thread here on the Student Loans board, because your post was  mostly about your Sallie Mae loans.

I'm sure you'll find, the guys and gals here are very knowledgeable about student loans.