|
Do I have to put up with thier abuse? I'm TRYING to pay but they won'y help me out any. My story is....
I acquired my student loan debt between 1999-2001. After school, I ended up in a very low paying entry level position as was not able to make payments on my loans as I was barely able to pay rent and eat some months. So, I defaulted on my payments. Not proud of this but I really didn't have any money to pay.
3-4 years ago I attained a better paying position and was in a position to make payments on my loans. I called all the numbers listed on the OSAP website to find out what collections agencies held my loans. They were NCO Financial, Allied International Credit and Accounts Recovery Corp. What happened next was absolute hell. After contacting these collections agencies, they harassed and threatened me several times a day every day at home and at work. I almost had a nervous breakdown and got into trouble at work. I saw a credit counseling agency in the city I was then living in and they were able to help me work out payment schedule for the little amount of money I had to pay ($150.00 between the three agencies) but I still received the threatening and harassing phone calls.
I moved two years ago and never gave the collection agencies any contact information except for my address. Now, I’m in a better paying position again and am able to bump my payments up to $350.00 per month (between 3 agencis) and I also want to try and get a consolidation loan (if my co-signer is accepted) so I no longer have to deal with collections. I contacted all three collection agencies by mail to request a statement of the amount I owe. NCO provided this immediately. In the meantime, my payments were returned several times from both Allied and ARC and I never had any response to my letters. I’ve called all the contact numbers of the OSAP website again and have pulled my credit report in an effort to find out if another collection agency has taken over my payments. It was confirmed that ARC now hold both the loans and I was given a contact at the agency. I tried contacting them by mail again but there has been zero response. I’ve heard that they refuse to correspond by mail because they want to force you to call them and provide your contact info (which they demanded the first time I dealt with them before they would give me any information).
Is there any advice anyone can offer on dealing with them? I’m TERRIFIED to call them and have them demand my contact info. I don’t think I can handle dealing with their daily threats and harassment again. I really want to pay them off (if I can consolidate) or make larger payments but I’m scared I’m going to end up in court because they haven’t responded and I have not been able to make payment (since they were returned).
Sorry for the long story.
|