nelnet confusion...

[opal13]

so i went on nelnet's site last night to see how much money i owe them. because of major financial problems for a couple years i was not able to make a single payment on my loans. however, i recently got some settlement money so i will be able to pay the loan in full. well, i got on their site to see how much i owe and lo and behold....it says it was paid in full back in october! the thing that confuses me is that by the "status" part it says "PIF BY CLAIM". anyone have a clue what this means? i can't find anything about HOW it was paid off (credit, check, etc.) and i can't find anything about if it was sold to another company or something like that......thanks for any help!

[Saria]

That notation means that your loan went into default status. Nelnet filed a claim with your guarantor, who then paid Nelnet. You now owe the money to the guarantor and need to find out who that is. If you call Nelnet, they should be able to tell you. The guarantor has most likely placed an entry on your credit reports as well. You can find a lot of deatiled information about the status and history of your loan in the NSLDS. You'll need a PIN to access the database; you can apply for one here.

Edited January 26, 2010 by Saria

[cod]

You can contact the guarantor and ask to rehab the loan, but it seems a bit hard to find anyone wanting to buy rehab'd FFELs these days. Rehabing the loan would remove the guarantor's tradeline, but not the chargeoff/defaulted student loan/government claim filed you'll get from NN. The loan would then be sold to a new lender ( or maybe back to NN, you wouldn't likely have a choice) and you'd get to start over. The account would become a new, positive tradeline on your credit report no matter what lender bought it.

 

You can consolidate the loan @ loanconsolidation.ed.gov, and that will update the guarantor tradeline to say paid collection and you'll get a new positive one from Direct Loans. The negative notation from NN would stay for 7 years no matter what.