Took out a loan - school went under

I attended Harrison Career Institute in Baltimore MD in 2005 for Medical Assisting and only went for two months maybe! just a few weeks, had to return back to work, going to school just wasn't cutting it for the bill paying and my family needed to eat.

Well I have a student loan out for them that I've been requesting a forbearance on for the past few years due to financial hardships.

Well after reapplying for this year, I find out that Harrison Career Institute (HCI) has gone under. They apparently were abusing the Federal Student Loan folks by claiming students and reapplying for loans. Copying and pasting scanned signatures in for students and basically got the Dept of Education for millions of bucks.

I was told by a representative at Direct Loans that because I only went to school for a few weeks that HCI should have either given ME the remaining funds to send back to Dept of Ed. or refunded that money to them directly, neither of which happened. Now I have over $3,000 in loans and only attended classes for a few weeks way back in 2005. Is there a statute of limitations on refuting a loan? Am I screwed because HCI went belly up? What should my next step be? Everyone is pointing me in another direction.

To start with, what options did Direct Loans offer you? I'd be really surprised if there wasn't something that could be done in a case like yours

Ok ....few questions.

Did you officially withdraw from the school? Depending on the withdrawal policy of the school, you probably were not due a refund. Private career schools have notoriously high tuitions and tight policies on withdrawal. Often with these types of schools, it you attend more than a certain amount of time, you pay for the entire program or semester depending on the length of the program. Acutally all schools have withdrawal policies...for example, attend 1 week 75% refund, 2 weeks 50%, 4 weeks 0 refund. It is pretty standard that after a certain point, you doing get any money back.

Did the school close while you were in attendance or within 90 days of your withdrawal? It not, you would not qualify for a closed school refund.

There is no SOL on any federally based student loan.

Direct loans said I needed to contact the school about sending me a refund or sending Direct Loans a refund because I only attended for a short time. I have tried to find a number for the school but they went out of business. After a few internet searches I found out that the whole HCI's in Northeastern US folded because of abusing the Dept of Education loan system.

Yes I officially withdrew from the school speaking to the administrator and explaining the reasons why. The school shortly afterwards closed, although I'm not exactly sure when their official closing was. It was because of the string of HCI's forging documents to reapply for loans, etc.

I'm not sure if they had withdrawal policies on refunds but I didn't attend very long and half the time the teacher's nor the administrators were in the offices/classrooms and we would sit all day with no one in the classrooms, which I thought was bogus.

Because Direct Loans said to contact them and there is no one to contact, I'm not really sure what I can do.

Who would have my official records from the school to say when exactly I withdrew from the school?

Or,When the school closed to find out if I qualify for a closed school refund?

Or if their bogus practices cause for all the students to receive a refund towards their student loans?

I seem to be getting the run-around and no help.