Student loan Collection call

[Volntyr]

Recently, my income tax refund was intercepted. It turns out that my wife never told me about a Student loan that she took out back in 1994 (We were married in 2006). After taking care of the Injured Spouse relief form with the IRS, we found out that West Asset Management had purchased the student loan of 25k. They recently started doing collection calls to our home phone number. Due to my wife's lack of logic and stubborness, she told me she had never paid any of it and went into forebarence a few year ago.

 

What I would like to know is, even though student loans are "an entire different beast" as far as credit reporting goes, are there some rules on what they can and can not ask for? The reason for asking this is my wife went ahead and got a call last night and 1) Wanted my Earnings information for possible consolidation even though its my wife's loan from before we were married 2) How much we pay for food and other necessities (When my wife said we had a baby, he asked how often does the baby need to eat) 3) Can we make a 5k payment so he can put into consolidation.

 

Needless to say, my wife was furious when he asked how much our baby needs to eat as if we were going to starve our 16 month old baby so we can start making payments.

 

Any help would be nice on this

[popflier]

Sallie Mae has asked me similar questions. Things like, "how are you able to live?", "can a friend or family member make your payments for you?" , "how much money do you have in your bank accounts?", "how do you eat?", etc, etc.... I could go on and on. I've looked into this as well because I certainly didn't/don't appreciate the questions and wanted to know if they could actually ask me these questions. From what I have found they can ask these questions as long as they are not using profane language or being abusive. There doesn't seem to be laws limiting what questions they can ask. Check your state laws on debt collection practices as they may have passed something that covers that, but I know in my state, Colorado, they haven't passed anything.

 

Here's the federal guidelines that debt collectors must follow:

 

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is federal law that regulates the activities of those who collect debts from others. Many states have adopted similar laws regulating the practices of debt collectors.

 

A debt collector:

 

* May contact you by mail, in person, by telephone or by telegram during "convenient hours" (commonly between 8 AM and 9 PM);

* May not contact you at work if the collector knows or has reason to know that the employer forbids employees from being contacted by debt collectors at the workplace;

* May not contact you if you are represented by a lawyer (the debt collector must then contact your attorney);

* May not continue to contact you after you have sent him/her a letter telling him/her not to contact you (however, s/he may contact you to tell you that some specific action is going to be taken);

* May not contact you after you send him/her a letter by mail within 30 days of the first contact that you dispute all or part of the debt (however, s/he may begin collection activities again if s/he sends you proof of the debt);

* Must within five days of the first contact send you a written notice stating the name of the creditor you owe money to, the amount of money you owe, what to do if you believe you do not owe the money, and the name of the original creditor if different from the current creditor (because the debt was sold or assigned to someone other than the original creditor);

* May not threaten violence against you or your property, use obscene or profane language, repeatedly telephone you to annoy or harass you, make you accept collect telephone calls or pay for telegrams, or use false or misleading information in an effort to collect the "debt."

 

If a debt collector violates the law, you can write a letter concerning the activity to the nearest office of the Federal Trade Commission. You can file a federal or state lawsuit against the debt collector for violation of the law, although there is usually a 1-year "statute of limitations." That means you have to file the lawsuit within 1 year of the violation to recover the actual damages that you've suffered. You can also recover up to a $1,000 in an individual lawsuit or $5,000 in a class-action lawsuit for each violation, plus attorney fees and costs.

[LynnInMN]

Recently, my income tax refund was intercepted. It turns out that my wife never told me about a Student loan that she took out back in 1994 (We were married in 2006). After taking care of the Injured Spouse relief form with the IRS, we found out that West Asset Management had purchased the student loan of 25k.

 

Federal loans are never sold to CA's. West is working on behalf of the guarantor who paid the default claim.

 

 

They recently started doing collection calls to our home phone number. Due to my wife's lack of logic and stubborness, she told me she had never paid any of it and went into forebarence a few year ago.

You mean default.

 

What I would like to know is, even though student loans are "an entire different beast" as far as credit reporting goes, are there some rules on what they can and can not ask for? The reason for asking this is my wife went ahead and got a call last night and 1) Wanted my Earnings information for possible consolidation even though its my wife's loan from before we were married 2) How much we pay for food and other necessities (When my wife said we had a baby, he asked how often does the baby need to eat) 3) Can we make a 5k payment so he can put into consolidation.

 

Needless to say, my wife was furious when he asked how much our baby needs to eat as if we were going to starve our 16 month old baby so we can start making payments.

 

Any help would be nice on this

 

Guarantors require the CA's to get full financial data before setting up any repayment plan. Your wife agreed to pay the loan in full on demand upon default and since she has not done so, they can basically ask anything they want. If she gave some dollar heavy number for a food budget, I would have questioned it too.

 

Keep in mind this DOES indirectly affect you. If by chance you needed FEMA assistance, due to her default you and your child would be denied for anything beyond the basics of food and water.