school help: I need help with student loan. - Help.com

What do you hope to accomplish with a lawyer or legal support? Did they use predatory lending practices when they gave you this loan? Anything short of that, I don’t see a legal reason to supersede the contract you signed; not having the means to pay a loan is not reason enough to void or modify the loan.

You can look into filing for bankruptcy; but a lot of these student loans have bankruptcy protections.

You could try to contact a credit agency that helps people in debt get out debt by giving you another loan with better terms and lower payments. They also work with the loaning bank to reduce your obligation. But be careful a majority of these agencies are no legitimate … in that their help often costs you more in the end … some are even set up by the banks themselves to get more money out of you. Do your homework before selecting a company.

Da⌐11 wrote:
What do you hope to accomplish with a lawyer or legal support?

to know my rights. know what I can and can’t do. ultimately I hope to stop them from slamming me with fees, penalizing me for a situation that is beyond my control.

Da⌐11 wrote:
Did they use predatory lending practices when they gave you this loan?

don’t know. I don’t think so.

Da⌐11 wrote:
Anything short of that, I don’t see a legal reason to supersede the contract you signed; not having the means to pay a loan is not reason enough to void or modify the loan.

what is the difference between my situation and usury? either way I am forced to owe them more and more money.

Da⌐11 wrote:

You can look into filing for bankruptcy; but a lot of these student loans have bankruptcy protections.

I assumed that was out of the question, but again idk.

Da⌐11 wrote:
You could try to contact a credit agency that helps people in debt get out debt by giving you another loan with better terms and lower payments. They also work with the loaning bank to reduce your obligation. But be careful a majority of these agencies are no legitimate … in that their help often costs you more in the end … some are even set up by the banks themselves to get more money out of you. Do your homework before selecting a company.

that doesn’t sound promising. I still think I need legal advice.

thanks for your ideas

The difference between your situation and usury has to do with intent.

Usury is the practice of structuring a loan with excusive and abusive interest rates when the lender knows that the lendee does not fully understand the terms of the loan. In other words it’s when an lending institution takes mindful advantage of the ignorant lendee. This would be an example of a predictor lending practice; and if it happened to you than you may in fact have legal grounds to void all or part of the loan.

However late payment fee’s are not in and of themselves evidence of a loaning institution taking advantage of you. If these fees are excessive than they could be evidence of predictor lending practice and akin to Usury; but your inability to pay is not the bench mark as to what is and what is not excessive. The judge as to what is and is not an excessive fee’s has more to do with industry norms and accepted practices, there are even local and federal laws on how much in fees a lending institution is allowed to charge.

Assuming your lending institution is within these norms and laws; your inability to pay which then leads to more and more out of pocket expense to you in the long run is not their fault nor their intention; it is simply a reality you need to deal with.

You have to understand, when you fail to pay they lose money. First they do not make the interest you owe them but that they were counting on making; and than second there are opportunity costs associated with your missed payment. The interest pulse the principle you would have paid them could have then been reinvested to earn interest another way. By not paying them you are in effect robbing them of this money and that is where the bases for the fee comes in; they are charging you for the money they lost when you didn’t pay them. Again assuming the fees aren’t excessive, this is quite a reasonable thing to do … after all it’s not their fault you can’t pay them.

To find out if their fees are excessive; call other lending institutions and ask them what their late fees are. You can pretend like you are interested in a loan with them and are just asking about the particulars.

Also don’t right off the idea of using a credit agency; while as I explained you need to do your homework; some companies are in fact beneficial and can help you. Legitimate companies have the means to work with a the bank to first lower what you owe; and then they shop around to find you loan with better terms to pay off the first one. Taking out another loan with better terms than the first is an effective way deal with debt problems. I recently did it on my own with a debt my wife surprised me with; I had the abity to do it all on my own so I knew I could trust the person handling the matter; but if you do your homework and find a good company it might be the best thing for you.

thanks for taking the time write this. the bottom line is that I shouldn’t have taken the loan and banks are pure evil. at least Las Vegas doesn’t try to hide that fact.

I haven’t looked into it, but the fees seem modest, not excessive.

Da⌐11 wrote:
You have to understand, when you fail to pay they lose money. First they do not make the interest you owe them but that they were counting on making; and than second there are opportunity costs associated with your missed payment. The interest pulse the principle you would have paid them could have then been reinvested to earn interest another way. By not paying them you are in effect robbing them of this money and that is where the bases for the fee comes in; they are charging you for the money they lost when you didn’t pay them. Again assuming the fees aren’t excessive, this is quite a reasonable thing to do … after all it’s not their fault you can’t pay them.

so… in other words, the bank has no liability for making this deal?

it’s also not my fault that I can’t pay them. I would take a better paying job if I could. hell, I can’t even take a lesser paying job that’s in my field; there aren’t any.

I don’t think they are losing money. when lendees default, isn’t it the govment that foots the bill? not the bank? and if they were losing money, then wouldn’t the amount that I owe them decrease?

here’s the thing…
since I’m unable to pay this loan back, they are increasing the amount that I owe. in other words, you know that saying “it takes money to make money.” well, for me, having no money makes more debt. if I weren’t poor, I could pay the loan and avoid these fees. it’s like I’m being punished for being poor.

this sucks

I understand your situation, it’s a raw deal; I’m sure if you talked to your banks president he would also sympathies with you. But he’s also helping to run a business, a business where the focuse is to lend money and collect interest off that lending. It wouldn’t be much of a business if they gave money away for free, or if they let everyone who doesnt pay them go with a hand shake.

Your right you shouldn’t have taken that loan; and there are a lot of people you should blame for that:

Of coure you need to start with yourself; you where an adult when you took the loan you ought to have thought it through. The current state of the economy had a flash point tied to the fact that to many adults took out loans they should have never taken. They hope for the best instead of planing for the worst and they hurt a lot of people in the porcess. The banks are not our parents, they aren’t obligated to ask “are you sure?” a 100 times befor they give someone a lone. They treat us like the adults we are and assume we did our homework befor we signed for a lone.

I guess you can blaim your parents; but I don’t know what kind of relationship you have with them. If you have a good relationship one would assume they should have warned you about the dangers of taking out loans with little calateral to back then up. If your parents did warn you well than it goes back to you.

You can blame the goverment for making it easy to borrow money. By lowering the intrest rates on student loans the goverment made it easy for young adults to take out loans they never should have. But more importantly they made it easy for collages to increase their prices. It’s not a coincidence that tuition rose as studint loans boomed … With more young adults having access to large sums of cash collages had more room to rase tuition.

That leads us to collages … Another group of people trying to run a business. These are smart people (or at least we hope they are) it’s not hard to imagen why they advocated the goverment to make student loans easier for the pore children to get … The more money out there for students simple means more money out there for colleges.

Also with the great education complex in the US; they have brainwashed everyone to belive that everyone needs to go to colloge … They like having the captive market … But the truth is a large portion of college graduates would have been much better of going strait to work or to an apprenticeship. They could be making a good living with out all the student debt.

You can blame socity that makes young people think they shouldn’t have to both go to collage and work at the same time. For not teaching them that a little hardworking now could lead to greater prosparty in the future. In our modern instant world, it just seems wrong for so many to think they need to put in more now to get more later.

And yes you can blame banks … they are smart enough to see all of the above and be there with open arms when students come a running. But again they aren’t obligated to be your parents, or your professors, or even goverment … If those people, who’s job it is to keep you out if the woods, haven failed you, it’s not exactly worth while to blame the wolf from eating you.

umm. not really sure what all that’s about. but you’ve obviously never been poor. I have worked my entire ******* life. since I was 15. even when in school. there was never a time where I didn’t have a job. I wasted ~10 years of my life working minimum wage **** jobs. I am very thankful for my education. (I know some very ignorant people that I do not want to be.) if getting an education were based on merit and not economic privilege, then there would be no problem.

I know who to blame, but that doesn’t really solve my problem.

as for your woods/wolf metaphor… if the banks are wolves, then its time to get the guns out. I don’t negotiate with wild animals who try to eat me.

Anonymous wrote:
umm. not really sure what all that’s about. but you’ve obviously never been poor. I have worked my entire ******* life. since I was 15. even when in school. there was never a time where I didn’t have a job. I wasted ~10 years of my life working minimum wage **** jobs. I am very thankful for my education. (I know some very ignorant people that I do not want to be.) if getting an education were based on merit and not economic privilege, then there would be no problem.

I know who to blame, but that doesn’t really solve my problem.

as for your woods/wolf metaphor… if the banks are wolves, then its time to get the guns out. I don’t negotiate with wild animals who try to eat me.

You would have to quantify pore for me in order for me to tell you if I was pore or not. If it helps I lived in a generational home growing up; my immigrant parents could not afford a place to live on their own, so my grand parents, parents, siblings and I lived in a one family house. My grandfather and father worked several jobs and were hardly home. My mother and grandmother alternated working nights and days so one of them would be home to watch my siblings and I. I began working when I was 13 and did not see a cent of my wages until I was 19 and made plans to go to college; that money (made from minimum wage jobs) and the money I made working full time while I was going to college paid for my college in full. The college I went too was a local collage and I saved money by not having to pay for housing, remaining in the one family house where my grandparents and parents lived. I graduated with no student debt. I graduated in 2001 during the tech bubble and 9/11 recession; having graduated collage with a technical degree there where no jobs for me in my chosen field. It took all most two years before I got a job in my chosen field.

Growing up I never felt pore; I never used the fact that so many others seemed to have more than me pull me down. What they had was irrelevant to my situation. What was relevant was what I was willing to do in order to change my situation. I hope that helps you understand my point of view on the matter.

As for banks being wolves … Of course they are wolves; they are a business and their only obligation is to increase the wealth of their share holders. They have absolutely no obligation to insure young adults get an education. They can certainly be a valuable tool in that regard when used wisely, but your lack of planing is not their fault. It is the fault of the people whos obligation was to take care of you, and your self since you were an adult at the time.

If these banks preformed predatory lending practices when you obtained the loans from them; then they ought to be persecuted to the full extent of the law. But if the contracts were drawn up in good faith and in principle to existing laws, as you seem to indicate, than there is little you can do to them as they have done little wrong.

Your fight ought to be with a society that brain washes it’s youth into believing high priced educations are the only way forward and that massive debt is a natural thing for a young adult to have. Both ideas are wrong and have led to a lot of trouble for the world. All over the world counties are hurting because to many of their citizens believed it was good and natural to carry more debt than they could handle. And unfortunately because banks make such easy targets most of these people haven’t learned from their mistakes… We will be right back here in 10-15 years time and the fall out will be even worse.