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I graduated University (Windsor ON) in 1993, in 1995 my OSAP defaulted, however it was paid off in 1997. Last year in 2009, I suddenly got a call from NCO collections. I spoke to a fella there, and when he became a tad abusive, I advised him to take me to court (I no longer had the evidence that I had paid the loans... and the banks only hold that info for 6 or 7 yrs max). NCO flatly told me they could not take me to court, so I told them to no longer call me. In June 2009 I received a notice from CRA that they put a lien on my income tax return on behalf of NCO collections.
I called the bank for any evidence the loan was paid, however, as I previously explained, they informed me that info was now purged off of their systems. I called the CRA, called the collections people at OSAP to no avail. Interestingly, the folks at CRA asked me if I was still in school in 2002 (that would be "no"). They did confirm that the Canada Student Loan portion was indeed paid in full in 1997. I went to my MPP and MP, however no luck there either. I did some research into the Limitations Act 2004 and the old Act. From what I understood in reading these, and some previous legal opinion, the Ontario Student Loan was indeed statute barred under the old act and could not be revisited under the new act (which states that OSL loans can no longer be statute barred). That would explain why NCO would not take me to court. It should be said at this point that my credit rating was never affected (at least since 1997) because of this issue.
I requested a copy of the file that NCO had, and indeed I received it. I spoke to CRA again, and faxed a copy of this file, along with a cover letter to them, asking them to compare the information I sent and the information NCO would have provided. I then put in an Access to Information request for a copy of whatever CRA had in regards to me in relation to the NCO request. I also made sure NCO was aware of what I had done.
Strangely enough, when I called NCO yesterday, the person dealing with my file refused to speak to me, or return my calls (.... and I tried again and again and again LOL). One of the other folks there did confirm that about a month ago, the Ontario government took the file back from NCO, and they no longer had it. I called the folks at OSAP, and they informed me that they had closed the books on my file and would send me a letter confirming that. No one would explain exactly why this had suddenly happened, I can only speculate. Thought I would throw this out there for any thoughts. I have actually considered taking my parent's lawyer up on his advice and going after NCO civilly anyhow.
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