Is my student loan collection agency ripping me off?
After 4 years of college, I accumulated a student loan debt of about $17,000 ($19,000 with interest) which I had consolidated with Nelnet. I struggled to make the first 3 payments, but eventually stopped after getting fired from my $8/hour job. Two and a half years later, I received a letter from a company called “Windham Professionals” stating that they purchased my loan from Nelnet and that I now owed them a whopping $45,000 with no explanation as to how they arrived at that number other than to say that $7,000 was for ‘collection costs’. Does this sound right? It took 4 years to accumulate the original $17,000 debt and a little over 2 years to nearly TRIPLE that number? What’s keeping them from charging me $1 million? I have since made 14 on-time payments to Windham to rehabilitate the loan, but I would like for that $45,000 bill to at least be cut in half. How do I do this?
i would suggest to check that out with the Better Business Bureuo. all collection agencies have a code to abide by…they are not allowed to add addition cost to your debt. they also are required to present you with evidence from original debter and explain the amount of the debt. if anything they should be offering you a settlement.
