Hello what advice would you give for myself whom accidentally reset my statue of limitations (via phone) on a private loan I took out at AI in Fort Lauderdale back in 2005-2007. I live in California since 2011 , the Loan was reset back in 2016 i believe and been paying 210 dollars every month since then. Every year they have to renew/reverify the payment on the loan and last year they did it with out my approval and I’m tempted to close my bank account and disappearing again for the 2 years limitation to get out of it since they don’t want to give me a lower payment and constantly bug me in settling the loan . They keep changing their company name so obviously they keep failing and not collecting enough to stay afloat. What’s you guys input on this?
Who is your servicer? Has it been sold off and sold again? I am a little bit confused on who holds the debt currently.
I don’t have a lot of knowledge on private loans myself, but clarity may help others who chime in. I believe (but don’t take this as legal advice because I am not a lawyer & I have limited legal knowledge as a fellow Ai alum) that you have more options if you get sued and go to court than you do now for repayment. So if you wanted to retry to outrun SOL you could make yourself a backup strategy for what you would do if you did get sued for the debt at any point.
For my personal self, I have vowed to never pay a dollar for Ai. It was a scam and I refuse to cosign the fraud by legitimizing it via payments. I understand that is not what everyone will choose, but for me, its the only choice.
Yea it must of been sold over and over again because the lender keeps changing names but the same people still work there.
They went from consolidated credit solutions to now radius global solutions , I have talked to a couple lawyers a while back about them and I honestly forgot what happened with that , but I’m just curious how can the sue for a fraudulent or SOL loan? It’s not even on my credit report either , is there a lawyer you may know that I can ask these questions?
The original serviced is sallie Mae who is now Navient. I ask them for a promissory note and they sent me a one page document with my info on it
The project on predatory student lending handles a lot of cases and can also refer you to other legal aid groups in your area if they can’t help you personally
Hi @Avnewby
A couple caveats from the outset here: I am not a lawyer and I don’t feel comfortable giving anyone financial, let alone, legal advice.
I think that every single payment renews the statute of limitations. This is a dirty trick that a lot of debt collectors will use. They will convince people to make a small payment, just as a show of good faith, it could be only a few dollars. Technically it could be even just one penny. Doing so puts the debt back in statute and restarts the statute of limitations. So if you have been paying $210 every month, the statute of limitations restarted as of your last payment.
Second, there can be a lot of confusion over which statute of limitations applies in each case. The laws are different in each state and it is not always clear which state’s laws are the ones that will apply. Is it the state that the debtor lives in? Is it the state where the debtor went to school? Is it the state where the private student loan was originated (which might not be the same as the school)?
Remember that the statute of limitations is just the amount of time that the lender/debt collector has to take you to court to try to seek a judgement against you. A judgement would allow them to start doing things like garnish your wages. But a judgement also gives you an opportunity to show up in court and dispute the debt. A lot of debt collectors don’t actually have all of the paperwork that they need to legally prove the debts they are trying to collect are legitimate. This means just showing up to court and asking them to prove it might result in getting the debt discharged for good. Since this is a private student loan you took out to attend AI, you could also make the case that AI was fraudulent and the private loans are illegitimate for that reason.
For now you could start by using the Debt Collectives private student loan dispute tool. Private student loans are really hard to dispute, but it won’t hurt to do so. You can do that here: https://tools.debtcollective.org/
Thank you so much for your reply…I sent the dispute letter to them and the replied: “ the law limits how long you can be sued on a debt. Because of the age of your debt, we cannot not sue you for it and we will not report it to any credit reporting agency’”
Next due date 5/28/2019 … $210.00
They have no way to make me pay !!
I had them on stop payment so they can’t take a payment, since April that lasts about 6months. Yet they want to charge me anyway ?? Should I pursue legal advice or moves ? I want all that money back all those payments I made smh.
This seems like it can be a partial win.
Be sure to keep this for your records.
And also, consider filing a credit report dispute and using this as evidence to tell the credit agencies to stop reporting this debt. Dispute Errors on Your Credit Report — The Debt Collective
It hasn’t been on my credit report for a few years now!
This is great news!
You have zero legal obligation to pay this debt. Now you need to keep your guard up because if they can trick you into making even one penny of a payment, the debt goes back into statute and they can sue you for it. So all you have to do is not pay it.
The tricky part is that they can still sell the underlying debt to other buyers/collectors, who can still try to trick you into making a payment. Don’t fall for it!
Keep this letter in a file folder where you will always know where it is and easily be able to access it. This letter is going to help you defend against this debt in the future.