Hello, all ! My name is Kristie. I live in Alberta with my husband and son. I need some adive on what I should do. There's a little bit of history  so let me explain.......

I took out a provincial and federal student loan thru the RBC back in 1998. I finished school and had an impossible time finding a job in my field locally. I was a 20 year old single mother of a two year old at that time and we didn't have enough money to relocate to where the jobs really were. I wasn't able to start making payments for the longest time; there was just never enough money. So I never dealt with it. Period. This was the one area of my life that I was really irresponsible with. Two years ago almost to the month, I started recieving calls from to CA from Collectcorp out in Ontario or wherever those jerks are. I have never been thru anything like that in my life. I think as well, I just didn't have the know how in dealing with these guys. They'd phone back to back within minutes of each other several times a day. Phoning me at work 7 X in one day almost got me fired. I was chambermaiding for $6.50/hr., what was I supposed to be able to give them? My husband and I weren't married yet and they were threatening and accosting him as well. It goes on, as you all know, but I have never been thru that. I should've called someone for some advice at that point but I still didn't have the smarts to deal with it strongly and intelligently. I was terrorized into sending them 24 post dated cheques, 12 for one amount, 12 for another, each set of cheques covering one of the two loans for the next year. The money was coming out of the Child Tax Benefit I was getting for my son and I hated the idea of doing that, but I was told I'd have no choice. They threated court, garishing wages, seizing our meagre bank account, and even jail. As I state again... I had never been thru this before, I didn't know that these things weren't ok and often illegal. I had never been threatened or harrassed before. It still amazes me now looking back how much you-know-what I took from those guys. I didn't know I could say, "No! I can't afford to pay you guys right now, or I'll put my family into financial hardship. What about that do you not understand?" As you can already tell I am still angry and bitter about what happened there.

I paid them for two months and things were getting harder and harder. I finally called one of my older more knowledgable pals about this and she gave me so much trouble for sending them all those cheques. I told her all that had happened, that we couldn't afford it. She told me to cancel all the cheques. So I did. I was getting $200/mos. from the CTB, and I had split it up between the two. You see, the very first time they called was at 6:15am on a  Sunday moring. It was a man first, Mr. Quash or Qualsh ? Demanding the full $16,000. I was so scared, he was screaming at me where's is the money? Whose your lawyer? Where do you work? I told him I couldn't afford it, I was weeping like a freakin' baby. This is so embarassing to even talk about now. I told him the only little bit I had was the CTB, but it was for my son. This man went ballistic. Never in my life. I just cried. I told him I would send it to him as soon as I got it. I hung up the phone, crawled back into bed with my then fiance (now husband) and just bawled. Like he keeps telling me now, " What did you think ? That it would just disappear? "

Not even two minutes later like not EVEN two minutes, the phone rang again. I got up wondering what the hell is going on, my son is up now hearing what's going on, I get the phone, and I can't even remember what that woman's name was. She wanted $200 as well!!! But from my conversation with Mr. Qualsch, two minutes earlier he told me the payment I was making was on both loans. And this woman is telling me,"No, it's not. If you can afford $200, you can afford $400" I finally cracked. I had explained as well as I could, (I had been crying so hard I could barely talk) that my son has a developmental learning disablility and it was costing alot of money for treatment. She told me I should have never had a kid. Like you know, YOU ALL KNOW, the list goes on and on and I'm sick of whining.

So, here's my dilemma....I have been hiding from them, I do not have a job, my husband makes pretty good money, not lots but decent. I only made two months worth of payments to Collectcorp. before I cancelled those cheques. The final straw was when they called me at work and started screaming at me on the phone telling me to get a lawyer, they even monitored the call. The customers in the restaurant could hear them hollering. I was so scared and embarrassed I've been running ever since. We've moved to a new city, my little one needed more special needs schooling than what the town we lived in offered so that seemed like the perfect opportunity to start over. But, you can never really get away with that. Life is just not that easy.

We have been paying so much in rent that we started looking at getting a mortgage, one of those zero down ones maybe, but all this credit rating stuff keeps coming up, we  finally got married just this past April and I am wondering what can I do? What are our chances for getting a mortgage? Is there any way we can get one without my name on it? Without having to lie? Should I try to call Collectcorp and deal with them? I don't know who to contact now because that was two years ago already. I don't want them knowing where we live or our number. I don't think I could go thru that again. I could probably give them around the same amount a month as before. Bun I am not doing any of this cheque writing and BS, money orders all the way. What do you all suggest? I really need your advice.

Sorry this post is so long.

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond if you did.

Take Care. Next time I promise no long windedness and babbling.

I was so excited to find you guys here. Please write back.

Kristie