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Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 7:29 am

Three things popped up on my credit report, all from US Dept of Education (not sure why three, I only had one student loan). I know my loan was a Direct Loan. I have been on deferments for years- basically when I was attending school I got pregnant and had a threatened pregnancy and had to quit school. Loan went on deferment....well, years of deferments (interest being generated, but what could I do?)

Well a couple years ago I spoke at length with the loan people about my situation..I don't work, will likely not work again and will be going on disability as soon as I can afford to see a DR (have no insurance). They gave me the option of filling out forms to have the loan discharged...I filled them out..and that was that...nothing. I have moved about since then and thought the loan was discharged...until I get my credit report and find the defaulted loan!

Now I don't know what to do and am in a panic....my husband just filed taxes, we always do joint even though I don't work...now I am worried about them taking his tax return. I don't know what to do! Can they take his money, even though I got this loan many years before I even met my husband. He is pissed at me..to say the least...he didn't know about this until now when it popped up on my credit report.

Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:10 am

First breathe. Second if you only had the one loan there can only be one listing. Dispute all of them. It will give you some time to find out exactly what's going on. Contact the DOE and ask them what is going on. I had something on my CR for years before I knew it and it was because someone made a typo. Mad

You may have to fill out more forms or even refill out the original forms but make sure you document everything and use the call recording service. Here http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/phone/
Lastly, smile it's not all bad; you found us right? Laughing

Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:51 am

It is very normal to have multiple tradelines with student loans. There should be a tradeline for the Direct Loan itself and then when you default, the Department of Ed debt collection service. I am not sure how you would end up with 3 tradelines unless you had both sub and unsub loans.

It is extremely difficult to have a student loan discharged for disability as the standard is set very high. Qualify for SSI disability does not mean you will qualfiy for student loan discharge. The condition could not be present when you borrowed the loan and for the most part the condition must be severe that it will lead directly to death. When I was collecting student loans, early in the 90's having HIV was an automatic discharge. At the end of the 90's medical research had gone so far that you had to have full blown AIDS and be in hospice before the DOE would consider cancellation. They look at treatments and medical research and look into to the future for possibility of recovery and re-employment.

I am not clear whether you had a physician sign your disability forms...if the answer is no, then your paperwork would have been immediately trashed. This is something you really should have stayed on top of including notifying the of your change of address.

You there will a lien on your join tax return. Your husband can file for an injured spouse and get his portion back.

Keep in mind that if you do qualify for SSI disability and your student loan is not dischargable, the DOE will garnish your SSI check.

Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 11:51 am

it happened to me . re: taxes on a joint acct ,married but student loan was mine before my marriage. was expecting about 8000$ for tax refund.
Got a letter saying they they took all of it because of student loan.we were pissed esp. my husband. He filed a "injured spouse form"(form on IRS website) with a short 2 sentence letter like " I feel I am entitled to my portion of tax refund and am not responsible for student loan. Student loan belongs to _______ sincerely,
husband signature
(cant remember exactly what he wrote.)
our accountant filled out the injured spouse form
I think it was like 2 pages or somethin

We got a ck in the mail for half of the $8000. thank god we needed it.... I am not proud of my debts ,but will be doing a rehab and taking care of it.

Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:02 pm

Whether you were married when you took the student loan is totally irrevelvant. A government debt is a government debt. It does indirectly affect your spouse and your family.

Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:38 am

I have done some research and feel marginally better for it. On the FSA website it says that defaulted student loans won’t get immediately taken, that they will contact you at the address you used to file tax returns and give you a chance to agree to pay and/or set up a payment plan. That’s no problem now, I can do the payment plan although I am not sure if they still charge interest when making payments, if so..then won’t my payments be nothing but interest payments, my total will never go down. Not to happy about that, but what can I do? The person I spoke with a long time ago told me that they had programs or some such that would close out the loan, discharge it because at the time I was not working, I had just gotten married and my husband barely made enough for us to live on…there was no way I could afford the payments. So ok, I filled out the papers and that was it, I heard nothing from them for like 6 months and then I moved, I didn’t think to check up on it, just assumed it was discharged.

Surprisingly, they did not take last year’s tax return. I realized that if this account defaulted way back when I spoke to that person, then its been in default for like 2 years! I looked at my credit report again and apparently it was filed in March 2006 as just 1 account, then again March this year as 3 accounts for roughly the same amount as the single entry (likely interest). I figure it is as Soaplady says, the original was direct loan, but then it was broken up so maybe I had different loans but signed deferments for them all and not individually.

I do intend to make payments, the amount is very small, it is just under $3000 and at the 1% can make the $30 payments (maybe more later so I am not paying for this out of my husband’s pension Smile

) Right now I am struggling with leaving well enough alone until just after the tax return or call them up and tell them I just now learned that I am in default and what can I do to remedy the situation? If all else fails, my hubby can file that injured spouse…but would it be for half of it since the money was made solely by him, none of it by me?

I should have checked on it to see if it was just deferred again or discharged, but since I got nothing in 6 months just kind of forgotten about it…but now in hind sight it is kinds strange I got nothing in 6 months, even if discharged, I would have gotten something.

Anyhow, thanks for helping me out with this!

Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 9:16 am

Sorry for the inconvenience, they have applied a spam filter. After trying several times to post this as a message in the thread, I give up. I'll try posting it as an image instead. Hope the info helps.

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Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 2:13 am

The problem is fixed now! Sorry for the inconvenience.

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 8:58 am

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:39 am

Thanks! I just can't get over all this...so even though I could have a zero balance for the rest of my life, the debt would continue to wrack up??? That just doesn't seem fair now does it! I consider myself extremely lucky in hindsight! I barely started school when everything happened...I had only 1 part of the loan or whatever come in, for less then $2000.....but now it may be upwards of $4000??? I don't think my payments will be $50, even right before I started going on deferment, my payments were like $25.....the website says that payments are %1.

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:39 pm

No you wont have a zero balance for the rest of your life, but you would have a zero payment. Interest continues to accrue. However after 25 years in repayment status, the DOE writes off the and then sends you a 1099 so you pay taxes on the written of p0ortion.

As far as I undersood, all staffords had a minimum payment of $50/month once in repayment.

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:46 pm

I'm currently paying off some Staffords. The minimum payment varies as the amount of the loan. Generally in the range of $19 - $30 per month, each. These are all on a ten-year repayment, and have not been consolidated.

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