What are my options to deal with Student Loan debt collectors?
Never speak to a debt collector. Ask them to stop calling you and STOP talking to them. Communicate only via postal mail. Do not react in an emotional way, do not use foul language, etc. If they call you and attempt to harass or intimidate you, note the date/time, name of the caller and nature of the call. Ask them to cease communications via phone and hang up. You're missing alot of detail here. You need to understand: The key to these things is to fully understand the situation you are in and find out what your legal obligations are. @littleadv has said most of what I'd say if they had not gotten here first. I'd add this much, it's important to understand what debt collectors can and cannot do, because a lot of them will use intimidation and any other technique you can think of to get away with as much as you will let them. I'd start with this PDF file from the FTC and then start googling for info on your state's regulations. Also it would be a very very good idea to review the documents you signed (or get a copy) when you took out the loan to see what sort of additional penalties etc you may have already agreed to in the event you default.  The fee's the collector is adding in could be of their own creation (making them highly negotiable), or it might be something you already agreed to in advance(leaving you little recourse but to pay them). Do keep in mind that in many cases debt collectors are ausually llowed at the very least to charge you simple interest of around 10%.  On a debt of your size, paid off over several years, that might amount to more than the $4K they are adding.  OTOH you can pretty much expect them to try both, tacking on 'fees' and then trying to add interest if the fees are not paid.   Another source of assistance may be the Department of Education Ombudsman: If you need help with a defaulted student loan, contact the Department of Education's Ombudsman at 877-557-2575 or visit its website at www.fsahelp.ed.gov. But first you must take steps to resolve your loan problem on your own (there is a checklist of required steps on the website), or the Ombudsman will not assist you. "You should hire a lawyer. The fact that they told you your personal information shows that they actually had it, and are not imposters, which is a good thing. The fact that they mislead you means that their intentions are not pure (which is not surprising coming from a collection agency of course). When dealing with collections (or any matter of significance for that matter), don't rely on their recording of the call, because they can always conveniently lose it. Make sure to write down every single detail discussed, including the date and time of the call, and the ID/name of the person on the other side. If possible - make your own recording (notifying them of it of course). It's too late to record the calls now, but do try to reconstruct as much information as possible to provide to your lawyer to deal with it. In the end of the day they will either provide you with the recording (and then you might be surprised to hear that what they said was not in fact what you thought they said, and it was just your wishful thinking, it is very possible to be indeed the case), or claim ""we lost it"" and then it will be a problem to either of you to prove who said what, but they'll have the better hand (having better lawyers) in convincing the court that you're the one trying to avoid paying your debts. That is why proper representation at all stages is important. As to the bankruptcy - it won't help for student loans, student loans is one of the very few types of debts you can't really run away from. You have to solve this, the sooner the better. Get a professional advice. For the future (and for the other readers) - you should have gotten the professional advice before defaulting on these loans, and certainly after the first call." You have not specified what country you are in. That radically changes everything. In case you are in Canada, there's a great blog that covers bankruptcy and student loans, at http://student-loan-bankruptcy.ca/. Fundamentally, in order to discharge government-backed student loans, you must have ceased to be a student for at least seven years prior to filing. Even then, though, the government can object, in which case you will still have to repay some or all of the loan. More generally, given that the collection agency appears to be operating in bad faith, you'll want to ensure that they send you written documentation of any offer they are extending you. If they refuse to do this, you should assume that they aren't actually offering you anything at all and you will have to pay back the full amount plus interest and penalties. Note that, in many countries, if you settle the debt (that is, pay anything less than the full amount plus interest and penalties), this will be a black mark on your credit report. In this case, if you repaid the full $16,000 and they forgave the extra $4,000, they would most likely still add a note to your credit report indicating that you did not pay the full amount that you owed, and this will negatively impact your credit rating even beyond your late payments. "I had about $16k in student loans. I defaulted on the loans, and they got  > passed to a collection type agency (OSCEOLA).  These guys are as legitimate as a collection agency can be. One thing that I feel is very sketchy is when they were verifying my identity they said ""Does your Social Security Number end in ####. Is your Birthday Month/Day/Year.""  That is not sketchy. It would be sketchy for a caller to ask you to give that information; that's a common scheme for identity theft. OSCEOLA are following the rules on this one. My mom suggested I should consider applying for bankruptcy Won't help. Student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy. You have the bankruptcy ""reform"" act passed during the Bush 43 regime for that. The loan itself is from school. What school? Contact them and ask for help. They may have washed their hands of your case when they turned over your file to OSCEOLA. Then again, they may not. It's worth finding out.   Also, name and shame the school. Future applicants should be warned that they will do this.  What can I do to aid in my negotiations with this company? Don't negotiate on the phone. You've discovered that they won't honor such negotiations. Ask for written communications sent by postal mail. Keep copies of everything, including both sides of the canceled checks you use to make payments (during the six months and in the future). Keep making the payments you agreed to in the conversation six months ago. Do not, EVER, ignore a letter from them. Do not, EVER, skip going to court if they send you a summons to appear. They count on people doing this. They can get a default judgement if you don't show up. Then you're well and truly screwed. What do you want? You want the $4K fee removed. If you want something else, figure out  what it is. Here's what to do: Write them a polite letter explaining what you said here. Recount the conversation you had with their telephone agent where they said they would remove the $4K fee if you made payments.  Recount the later conversation. If possible give the dates of both conversations and the names of the both agents.   Explain the situation completely. Don't assume the recipient of your letter knows anything about your case. Include evidence that you made payments as agreed during the six months. If you were late or something, don't withhold that.  Ask them to remove the extra $4K from your account, and ask for whatever else you want. Send the letter to them with a return receipt requested, or even registered mail. That will prevent them from claiming they didn't get it. And it will show them you're serious. Write a cover letter admitting your default, saying you relied on their negotiation to set things straight, and saying you're dismayed they aren't sticking to their word. The cover letter should ask for help sorting this out. Send copies of the letter with the cover letter to: Be sure to mark your letter to OSCEOLA ""cc"" all these folks, so they know you are asking for help. It can't hurt to call your congressional representative's office and ask to whom you should send the letter, and then address it by name. This is called Constituent Service, and they take pride in it. If you send this letter with copies you're letting them know you intend to fight.  The collection agency may decide it's not worth the fight to get the $4K and decide to let it go.   Again, if they call to pressure you, say you'd rather communicate in writing, and that they are not to call you by telephone. Then hang up.  Should I hire a lawyer?  Yes, but only if you get a court summons or if you don't get anywhere with this. You can give the lawyer all this paperwork I've suggested here, and it will help her come up to speed on your case. This is the kind of stuff the lawyer would do for you at well over $100 per hour. Is bankruptcy really an option Certainly not, unfortunately. Never forget that student lenders and their collection agencies are dangerous and clever predators. You are their lawful prey. They look at you, lick their chops, and think, ""food."" Watch John Oliver's takedown of that industry.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUAntt1z2c Good luck and stay safe."
"Assuming by your username that you are Dutch and this concerns invoices under Dutch law, there are a couple of ways to go about it. First of all, we don't have ""small claims court"" the way the US does. That would make life a lot easier, but we don't.   You can go all legal on him and go through court procedures. The first step would probably be the [""kantongerecht""](http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantongerecht) though there are some limitations to what you can do there. You don't need to have a lawyer at the kantongerecht, but chances of fucking up are high if you don't have experience or some experienced help. It's also likely to eat up more of your time than it's worth. And even if you get a favorable judgement there's still the matter of collecting.   The second option, which nearly all companies in the Netherlands use, is to turn it over to an ""incassoburo"" (collections agency). For either a fee or a percentage they'll go after the miscreant, usually tacking that fee onto the money owed so it shouldn't cost you too much. The downside is that, again, they're not always successful if the non-paying person is either extraordinarily obstinate, already in a lot of debt, or if you're looking at him/her/it going bankrupt or being in ""schuldhulpverlening"" (debt counseling, which in some cases comes with legal protections).   The third way, if it's a viable debt but you're willing to take a loss in exchange for money now, is to sell off the debt to a factoring agency. They'll assess it and pay out the open invoice to you, minus costs and/or a percentage depending on how they view their odds of collecting on it. It's then their debt, and they'll go after the original debtor without you ever needing to bother with it again.   It's a tough position to be in. I've had to write off some invoices over time, some only a couple'hundred, some in the 5-figure range when a major customer of mine went tits-up. And I just happened to have an interesting conversation yesterday with someone who's more into the commercial side of my line of work. I learned that some relatively big name potential clients are looking more and more like a debt-ridden empty shell,  so they went on the list of companies to keep a sharp eye on in case I do business with them.   In future cases, keep on top of payment t&amp;c, start reminding (""aanmaning"") as soon as they miss their pay-by date as the first documented step towards taking action against them, and if it's a common problem try looking at factoring companies or insurance against non payment. It will cost you some margin, but increase your security." I defaulted on my federal loans, as have over 8 million others. I have a ton of money in savings from not having paid the loans for several years. I work for myself, so all they can do is make calls asking me to sign up for their payment plans. You should definitely pay the remaining loan amount as quickly as possible. A loan in bad debts means that Bank has written it off books as its a education loan and there is no collateral. The defaults do get report to CIBIL [Credit Information Bureau India] and as such you will have difficulties getting credit card / new loans in future. Talk to the Bank Manager and ask can you regularize the loan?  There are multiple options you would need to talk and find out; 1. You can negotiate and arrive at a number. Typically more than the principal outstanding and less than interest and penalties charged. 2. You can request to re-do the monthly payments with new duration, this will give you more time. 3. May one time large payment and subsequent amount in monthly payments. At the end its Bank's discretion whether to accept your terms or not. If you are now in a better position to pay your debts, the wise move for your long-term credit is to consolidate any high-interest debt that remains and pay it off as quickly as possible. This may not be possible depending on your situation, but one way to get such consolidation loans is to have a parent with good credit cosign as guarantor on the consolidation loan. The only way your credit will recover is if you establish a good history of payments over the next seven years. Frankly I wouldn't cosign a loan with a family member who made the same decisions you have made, because I wouldn't want to put my own credit at risk, but I might loan the money directly, which would ease the pain for that family member, but it wouldn't help their credit going forward. This may not be a popular opinion, but without any details, it's hard for me to agree that any of your creditors are being greedy when they threaten a judgment. They loaned you the money in good faith, and now you are attempting to negotiate a change of terms.  Are they greedy because the interest rates are too high? Maybe you were a bad risk when they loaned the money and the rates reflected the risk of losing some portion of the money. The fact that you are trying to discharge some portion of that debt vindicates any high rates charged. "I agree about not wanting to get into your friend's personal business, and it's a scummy bill collector that repeatedly calls friends or family to track down a debtor. On the other hand, at least he's made it obvious he's calling about a debt as opposed to pretending to be tracking down your friend with some other pretext. Nevertheless, you want the calls to stop.  Here are two suggestions: Perhaps, a small fib: ""The creep owes me money too! Grrr! Let me know when you find him!""  The bill collector probably won't call you again :-) Or, if you're like me and uncomfortable fibbing – even to a scummy bill collector! – then here's a more truthful yet direct approach: ""I told you already it's not my debt, it's none of my business, and that I want you to stop calling me.  You have no right to harass me and if you call again I will involve the police.  There will be no other warning."" Then have the phone company block the bill collector's phone number from calling you." It looks like your visa being refused is entirely irrelevant. What happens in bankruptcy is that all the assets of the bankrupt entity are taken over, liquidated, and the proceeds are distributed to the creditors. You're one of the creditors, and as you've been told - the proceeds are not enough to pay all the creditors in full. This is quite common in bankruptcies. What you can do is sue in court and demand priority over other creditors, but... a. You're exactly the same as many other creditors (rest of the students), so why would you get a priority? b. Suing costs money and even if you get more, you'll pay way more for legal fees and expenses. What else can you do? If you paid with a credit card - your credit card company may be able to reverse charges. Sometimes that works, depending on how fast you move. If you paid with a check - your bank may similarly be able to stop payment on the check. This provided it hasn't been settled yet. Debt collectors are just doing their job as many people want to evade payment by not responding and skipping their debts, and they talk tough to force people found to make their obligated payments based on what they can afford and that’s all. I’m in the UK, but I assume the process is similar.   Before I begin, I worked in debt collection and I presume that the debt collection agency have requested details for a source like a college and you have been returned as a possible match as you name is identical to their debtor but with differing date of birth etc. College/University students are very nomadic in nature and addresses aren’t very helpful when they are not current, but details of a current address/employer to a very similar name would be a possible lead to debtor and the debt collector is simply acting on flawed information which is fairly rare, and  cases such as these are resolved when you can simply confirm your date of birth and other details so that they can eliminate you from their chasing activities.  Whilst you may feel uncomfortable about giving your details, you are not the debtor and will have to confirm this, the debt collector is only interested in collection of valid debts values, and the current letter is most likely a standard letter to get you to act assuming that you are the debtor. If you try to ignore this or only partly answer their contact by telling them not to contact your employer etc, they will assume that you are the debtor and step up pursuit  by contacting at work by phone, in person, or by other means, and you employer will see you in a bad light… I would advise you to write to them a one-time only letter confirming details of your home address and insist on correspondence in writing only to that home address, in addition you should confirm your full name including full middle names, date of birth, that you have never attended the college in question,  agreed to any such debt in writing, and that you are not the correct data subject as the ss number also differs.  The letter should also go on to state a range of costs which require payment before you act further, ie subsequent letter $xx.xx amount attending court $xx.xx per hour(not cheap) and that if they harass you or otherwise affect your standing with your credit reference, or employer or anyone else that you ‘Will’ take further action and ‘May’ take them to your ‘Local’ court and pursue the costs list above and  losses as a result of their actions including pain and suffering. Speak tough and mean business and act decisively and your message will win through, share your details with them once and above all copy your employer in so that they know this is a case of mistaken identity. You can add a large heading at the top of the letter of ‘Mistaken Identity’ to prove your point. "The debt collection agency needs to see a copy of the notice from the bank that the $300 charge is a disputed and fraudulent charge. Also require them to provide proof. To reduce your stress, you should contact a lawyer to handle the debt collection agency.  Disputing the information on your credit report is exactly the way to ""fix"" that issue. All they need to see is the bank letter stating that the charges were fraudulent. The credit reports should show that item as disputed for at least a month if not remove it entirely. The bank should be able to provide with copies although you may have to pay a research charge if the information is old enough. I recommend talking to your local branch manager to get what you need." I cannot speak specifically to the Netherlands or the UK specifically, but my prejudice has me believing that there would be more consumer protection in those two countries than that we have here in the the US, certainly not less. Debt collectors mostly do their job by bullying.  Here in the US they are mostly toothless and typically obtain payments when they invoke an emotional reaction.  In your case they are attempting to invoke fear.  Legal action over €400?  Get real.  It will cost them 20 times that to bring action, and they are equally likely to get a sympathetic judge to toss out the case. Now you very well know you should have returned the box, please don't be coy.  If you still have it, you should attempt to return it.  If not you should attempt to settle.  Offer them €80, going no higher than €160.  Get it in writing, that this satisfies the debt and use either a one time use credit card or a bank check/money order. "I don't think the article is accurate. From https://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/default#consequences Your student loan debt will increase because of the late fees,   additional interest, court costs, collection fees, attorney’s fees,   and any other costs associated with the collection process. Most stories of collection agencies having a debt start with ""I owed $2000"" and the collection agency says ""It's now $4000"" due to interest, late fees, collection fees, etc." "Somehow I just stumbled onto this thread...  &gt; You essentially robbed the person holding the debt (since you promised to pay it off).   Depends on leverage, with fractional reserve lending.  Banks are permitted to loan out 30x their actual assets, or more.  If I have $1 but can loan out $30, and anything more than $1 gets paid back, I haven't lost any money.  In addition, I can write off the amount defaulted, *and the government will pay me back* for certain types of loans.  With student loans, since they are almost impossible to discharge, gov't will pursue the borrower for years and decades, and ultimately collect more interest.  Here is an article on it:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704723104576061953842079760.html  &gt; According to Kantrowitz, the government stands to earn $2,010.44 more in interest from a $10,000 loan that defaulted than if it had been paid in full over a 20-year term, and $6,522.00 more than if it had been paid back in 10 years. Alan Collinge, founder of borrowers' rights advocacy Student Loan Justice, said the high recovery rates provide a ""perverted incentive"" for the government to allow loans to go into default. Kantrowitz estimates the recovery rate would need to fall to below 50% in order for default prevention efforts to become more lucrative than defaults themselves.   Not to mention:  http://studentloanjustice.org/defaults-making-money.html  &gt; So essentially, the Department is given a choice:  Either do nothing and get nothing, or outlay cash with the knowledge that this outlay will realize a 22 percent return, ultimately (minus the governments cost of money and collection costs).  From this perspective, it is clear that based solely on financial motivations, and without specific detailed knowledge of the loan (i.e. borrower characteristics, etc.), the chooser would clearly favor the default scenario,  for not only the  return, but perhaps the potential savings in subsidy payment as well,     And don't forget the penalties accruing to the person defaulting; they will probably have to move out of the country in order to escape collection.  And let's factor in the huge ROI the lender sees by creating an indentured servant class.  Plus, the gov't will issue as much currency as it wants, to make *itself* whole.  And how much of a loss IS the loss, when the whole of the loan amount went right back into the local economy, paying professors, janitors, landlords, grocery stores, etc.?  And don't forget all THOSE taxes (income and sale) that the gov't collects.  Government will collect ~30%-50% of the loan immediately as income and sales tax, plus a portion of it every time the money changes hands (I pay income tax, then use some of my after-tax money to pay you for a product or service, and you still have to pay tax on that money, and so on).  So it's more complicated than having ""robbed the person holding the debt"".  Banks at 30x leverage don't lose money as long as they get back 1/30th of the total amount lent out, including interest, fees, and penalties, before considering write-offs and government repayment.  In fact, the point of over-leverage is so you CAN make loans that have risk attached.  If you could only lend what you actually had, you would have to stay away from anything risky because it would be too easy to lose money.  Having virtual $ to bet means you can serve market segments that have higher risk.  This makes MORE money for the banks, that's why they do it.  They are already playing with funny money, so they don't lose any even if you default and move to another country.  And the money you ""spent"" has also made its way back to them in various amounts, such as your professor's mortgage payments, auto loan, etc.  Your taking on debt already helped the bank get its OTHER loans repaid.  So, roughly speaking, if you took out $90,000 and $3,000 of that made its way back to the bank through various means, they haven't lost any money, because it only cost them $3,000 actual dollars in the first place." "Let me give you some advice from someone who has experience at both ends - had student loan issues myself and parents ran financial aid department at local university. Quick story of my student loan.  I graduated in debt and could not pay at first due to having kids way too early.  I deferred.  Schools will have rules for deference.  There are also federal guidelines - lets not get specific on this though since these change every year it seems.   So basically there is an initial deferment period in which any student can request for the repayments to be deferred and it is granted.  Then there is an extended deferment.  Here someone has to OK it.  This is really rather arbitrary and up to the school/lender.  My school decided to not extend mine after I filled out a mound of paperwork and showed that even without paying I had basically $200 a month for the family to live off past housing/fixed expenses. Eventually they had to cave, because I had no money so they gave me an extended deferment.  After the 5 years I started paying.  Since my school had a very complex way to pay, I decided to give them 6 months at a time.  You would think they would love that right?  (On the check it was clearly stated what months I was paying for to show that I was not prepaying the loan off) Well I was in collections 4 months later.  Their billing messed up, set me up for prepayment.  They then played dumb and acted like I didn't but I had a picture of the check and their bank's stamp on the back... They couldn't get my loan out of collections - even though they messed up.  This is probably some lower level employee trying to cover their mistake.  So this office tells creditors to leave me alone but I also CANNOT pay my loan because the credit collection agency has slapped a 5k fee on the 7k loan.  So my loan spent 5 years (kid you not) like this.  It was interest free since the employee stopped the loan processing. Point being is that if you don't pay the lender will either put your loan into deferment automatically or go after you.  MOST (not all) schools will opt for deferment, which I believe is 2 years at most places.  Then after that you have the optional deferment.  So if you keep not paying they might throw you into that bucket.   However if you stop paying and you never communicate with them the chances of you getting the optional deferment are almost none - unless school doesn't know where you live.  Basically if you don't respond to their mail/emails you get swept into their credit collection process.  So just filling out the deferment stuff when you get it - even if they deny it - could buy you up to 10 years - kid you not.   Now once you go into the collection process... anything is game.  As long as you don't need a home/car loan you can play this game.  What the collection agency does depends on size of loan and the rules.  If you are at a ""major"" university the rules are usually more lax, but if you are at the smaller schools, especially the advertised trade/online schools boom - better watch out.  Wages will be garnished very soon.  Expect to go to court, might have to hire an attorney because some corrupt lenders start smacking on fees - think of the 5k mine smacked on me.   So the moral of the story is you will pay it off.  If you act nice, fill out paperwork, talk to school, and so on you can probably push this off quite a few years.  But you are still paying and you will pay interest on everything.  So factor in that to the equation.  I had a 2.3% loan but they are much higher now.   Defaulting isn't always a bad thing.  If you don't have the money then you don't have it.  And using credit cards to help is not the thing to do.  But you need to try to work with the school so you don't incur penalties/fees and so that your job doesn't have creditors calling them.   My story ended year 4 that my loan was in collection.  A higher up was reviewing my case and called me.  Told her the story and emailed her a picture of their cashed check.  She was completely embarrassed when she was trying to work out a plan for me and I am like - how about I come down tomorrow with the 7k.  But even though lender admitted fault this took 20+ calls to agencies to clear up my credit so I could buy a house.   So your goal should be:" I had a similar situation, except the debtor had no connection to us whatsoever, other than holding our phone number previously. We tried going through channels to deal with it, and had no success. At the end of the day, I was very abusive to the people calling, and forwarded the number to a very irritating destination. Suing is a legitimate option as well as screening your calls but here's another idea which has personally worked and relates to the collections I did for awhile.  Talk with the collector.  Outstanding debt gets sold many times and each time a new collector gets their hands on an account they do their due diligence which means calling every single number multiple times.  Collectors a looking for consumers who actively evade collections calls for years. My recommendation is to use logic and explain the situation.  Give your first name and describe when you received the phone number and then ask a simple question.  When in the last 3 1/2 years have you or any collector had a successful hit from this number.  They'll respond never in 3 1/2 years.  The collector notes the account for themselves and future collectors.  Debt collectors are about about making money, not wasting time and they do review all notes pertaining to an account.  Will it work?  Maybe not but hopefully it will stop the calls with a short conversation.  Good luck. There is no document that I know of that stipulates otherwise. This can also be corroborated by the fact that RESP withdrawals are considered as income in the name of the student. Thus, so long as the student pays tuition and receives a T2202A slip from the educational institution, they should be able to claim tuition, education, and textbook amounts.