Collector obligations

Creditors/student loan providers hire collection agencies to collect debt. Also, they are required to be professional in behavior and conduct as well. They do have to send you information as to what and who you owe. However, they have limited ability in certain functionality because they are not the creditor. Your creditor can issue you a statement of account. In a lot of cases a borrower requests one from the creditor, and they send you back to the assigned agency, and the agency tells you that you have to go back to your creditor. This sort of behavior demonstrates that the creditor simply does not want to get involved in any way once the account has been assigned to a collection agency. at this point they have written you off and not just the account, which is where the real damage occurs.

Hi All,

Let me tell you my story...Shortly after I graduated from college I packed up my life and left for China. I lived there for 6 months and had a wonderful experience. However, during that time payments for OSAP repayment began coming out of my bank account. Since I hadn't used that account in awhile I didn't notice the payments coming out. Long story short, I defaulted on my payments and my file was sent to Nordon. As you all know by now they are less than accommodating. Originally everything was fine; I was making regular payments of $150 per month and working towards being more responsible with my debt management. (After all, I DID let it default in the first place!) I was making my payments at the end of the month for the preceding month. So for example, a payment made February 28th was my payment for March. How grown-up of me! Fast forward a few months. My boyfriend goes back to China and I get the opportunity to transfer to a beautiful seasonal store by the lake (I'm a Manager of a popular retail clothing store). After buying an expensive plane ticket, paying off our last bills, packing up our lives and moving on, I call Nordon to let them know I won't be able to make a June payment.

For some of you this would be a wonderful decision to be making, since a lot of you guys are in way worse situations than me. However at the time I was SCARED! I didn't want to have to tell my family and I certainly didn't want to choose between those two options. I tried to continue on with my day, shopping (but afraid to buy groceries in case I couldn't afford them after Friday) and trying to keep up a conversation with my friends (my mind kept wandering to my dilemma). I got home and stayed up until 3am researching my options. THIS WEBSITE WAS MY SAVIOUR! I started reading everyone's posts and it felt great to know I wasn't alone. Infuriating that so many people were being screwed over, but happy that I wasn't the only one. Selfish? Maybe. But I needed consolation at that point. Throughout the posts I found much solace in advice given, especially the advice from Johnny. I'm sure most of you have read his answers and found exactly what you needed. At roughly 2am I sent an email to John via the www.cfwgroup.ca link and told him everything that had happened. By this point I had a horrible headache and was tired, mentally and physically, but I couldn't sleep. I couldn't turn off my mind. All the questions and problems and options were floating around and I couldn't rest. Next morning I head to work, still scared and undecided, and received the most WONDERFUL phone call I have ever received. It was Johnny! 

He patiently sat on the phone with me answering my questions as quickly and surely as I could throw them at him. And I had a LOT of questions. To garnish, or not to garnish! He told me everything he could do for me and what options would help me the most, yielding the safest results. After I was all talked out and all my questions were answered, John suggested a conference call between him, myself and the collection agency. For a minimal fee (and I mean minimal!) he would call the lady, RECORD the conversation, email me a .wav copy, and...MOST IMPORTANTLY...find out the truth! My greatest fear was that they were lying to me about the wage garnishment in hopes of forcing me to pay the full amount. I don't know if you guys know this but they FEAR him! They fear HIM, the way we fear THEM because he helps us! As soon as he said his name her tone was completely different. Towards the end of the conversation he said "Jessica is going to continue her monthly payments of $150 and there will be no more talk of wage garnishment or empty threats" and she said "OK"! SHE SAID OK! No fight, not argument, just OK! They know better than to fight with him. They know they will lose.

If there is ONE thing you get out of the novel I have written, let it be this...Contact Johnny! When I got off the phone with him this morning I spent all day smiling. All I kept thinking was that I was safe. I truly think Tuesday & Wednesday were the most stressful days of my life. It was SO easy! The conference call lasted less than 5 minutes, but those 5 minutes were the best 5 minutes ever.

Friday would have been the day I would have had to choose between a rock and a hard place. But you know what, Friday the 13th looks a little less scary now! Creepy coincididence, eh?