late payments on a student loan - when do they start harassing you?

You're allowed a forbearance for 6 months, and you're allowed (at least throughout the 90's) three forbearances. Then you start paying or you go to default. It's about 2-3 months before the calls come in from the private collection agency. If you don't pay, it might jump around to other collection agencies, but eventually it'll wind back up with the state. If you don't play ball with them, they start garnishing.

If you go to Salliemae.com or directloans.com you can find their deferment and forbearance conditions. Most of it is not complicated, so your MC will have to be a bit dumb and overwhelmed to have avoided a good option. She also should not get on the phone too much with them b/c while they aren't always sharp about telling you what your options are, the second she mentions she can't pay, they'll give her some options. (but they only told me some of my repayment options, they didn't tell me I could look into deferment until I specifically asked).

Caroline, a city near me happens to have a business devoted to bill collection on student loans. They've got a website with a Contact Us link. They probably have a PR person who'd field general information questions from a writer seeking to get it right. Maybe you could ask for a phone interview?

Maryn, whose friend worked there for a while

If you want her to have financial troubles, then have her fall behind on her credit card.

The student loan people go out of their way to help you pay.

I would pick something other than a student loan to fall behind on. I have only been paying mine periodically for the past 20 years, thanks to forberances and deferments and so forth, and have never, ever received a harassing phone call or letter in all that time....

Audrey

There are dozens of kinds of student loans. My niece has several small loans combined into one, through a commercial bank. It is still considered a student loan. She recently went back to school for another masters degree, applied for the deferrment and was granted it. The bank called her father, who co-signed the loans when she was over 30 days late. They hadn't gotten the paperwork. (This harassment continued for several months, negatively affecting her father's credit rating, until the school finally contacted the bank to verify that she was an active student again).

I worked bill collection for a group of anesthesiologists for a while. (Talk about depressing!) We were not especially aggressive. After all, we're calling sick and injured people, many of them impoverished and/or elderly, on incomes ranging from fixed to none. We accepted any good-faith effort to make a payment of any amount as reason to stop calling as long as those payments arrived. I remember a guy who owed something like $4500 who was paying us a dollar a week, every week.

So a medical bill might not be great. How about back rent or payment for damage to a rented house or apartment? Some landlords are quite aggressive. Students often share housing, and are often pretty irresponsible about taking adequate care of a house or apartment. Damage in excess of any deposit should, of course, be shared by all who shared the house (unless the responsible party pays it all), but when the students have all left the area, landlords routinely seek the total from the former tenant they can find--even if that tenant was out of the apartment before the damage occurred.

I know someone who ended up paying a couple thousand dollars in a case like this, and depending on how much financial trouble you want your character to be in, you could increase the damage to something amazing--done after she'd left, if that serves.

Maryn, wondering in which state your novel is set, as laws may vary

I can tell you from a "friend's" experience that it is possible never pay a dime on student loans. The only consequence was a forfeiture of $90 refund from The Man, after which the "friend" also ceased relations with that entity as well.

Of course, this friend is a transient writer who only holds jobs for a year at a time...but I can tell you that f-in' student loans are the least of any debt problem. Medical bills are also easily ignored. Credit cards get frightening with huge interest, but in the end, we don't have debtors prison, and if you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose.

More compelling is to threaten the actual security of the character...why not simply fall behind on rent/mortgage? The immediate consequences of eviction are more dramatic than a few powerless bill collectors.More timely, immediate, and poignant as well.

Private student loans can be very complicated, sold off to new companies, poor documentation about what exactly they are talking about. And the calls can begin within 3 months or so.

Still, it's not difficult once the calls start (they have many options and send good paperwork). I could certainly imagine that part being a nightmare, too, depending on who got sold the loan, though...

CurranCR said:

Hi everyone. Thanks for all your help. So, maybe it would better to saddle my character with a commericial student loan (through a private bank) rather than a federal one?

I'd thought of credit card bills, but I didn't think that fit her character. Another possibility would be unpaid hospital bills, but a hospital wouldn't be that aggressive about collecting, would it?

Thanks again for all your suggestions.

Caroline

Click to expand...

I don't know about that...Hospitals can be pretty nasty. I think they've gotten a lot more aggressive over the last few years. Much more so than the private practice docs I've worked with. We were actually turned over to a collection agency in New Jersey over a $400.00 bill (even though we were making regular payments on it-$15-$20.00 a month). The agency they hire for collections had no problem calling us all the time.