OCCUPY STUDENT DEBT

In 2002 My son wanted to attend Chubb Institute in New York.  When applying
for financial aid we were told that before he could be considered for any
other aid I had to apply for a parents loan.  Given that I was only making
250 a week and had just had an auto repossessed I told the financial aid
office I was certain I would be denied.  I filled out the application and
was never told I had been granted a loan for over 13,000 so we thought that
with his own federal loan they had found grants for him.

In February 2004 a lawsuit was filed against me in NY By Sallie Mae.  They
claim to have given service to someone they state was a "co-tenant" named
Jorge Torres.  At no time have I ever lived with anyone by that name.  The
owner of the house I lived in is Juanita And Julio Torres who are my aunt
and uncle.  Sallie Mae has since filed in Florida to recognize  this
judgment and have stated they sent me a copy at 21609 Sally St SE Palm Bay
Fl.  My address is 1069.  They then sent a summons for a deposition to 31069
Sally st.  The process server located me due to her ability to figure out
that there is no address as stated on her paperwork. During the deposition
their attorney asked me if my address was 21069 Sally St and I said no.  He
then asked me what it was and I provided him with the correct address  In
December they filed for a garnishment with no notice to me whatsoever.   I
asked their attorney for a copy of the promissory note they claim I signed,
it took him in excess of 30 days to get it to me and only after I notified
him that he failed to do so did he email some document to me and while the
signature is close it does not appear to be mine. The copy of his letter
prefacing the copy of a promissory note shows he used the address he knew to
be invalid.  This leads me to believe he deliberately did so use a fake
address in order to prevent me from any self defense  Additionally I had
asked 2 other collection agencies for this beginning in 2008 and their
current attorney has chosen to NOT send me a copy of all pertinent court
documents filed here in Florida including the garnishment at to my correct
address and in all likelihood has told the court he has while using an
address he knows is false in order to once again deprive me of my rights.

Now to add insult to injury Sallie Mae has turned this over to Allied
Interstate for additional collections in spite of the fact that they are
garnishing me!!



Their actions forced me to move in with my son and has resulted 
in even more serious damage to my credit.  I find myself at the age of 
57 facing a bleak future (what's left of it).  I may never be able to 
obtain my own home even as just a rental. I suffer frequent bouts of 
insomnia and my ulcer is nearly always actng up.  This in spite of any 
requests I have made to Sallie Mae directly to explain why they created a
 fictitious character upon whom to provide service and why their 
attorney in Florida uses an address he knows is incorrect

The 
fact that they have engaged in fraud in two states leads me to believe
that this is a common practice for Sallie Mae.
Is there any way to vacate this in both states? 
I really don't know and so far have been unable to obtain legal 
representation in light of the fact that with Sallie Mae taking 360 
every 2 weeks I will never be able to.

I became disabled in 1999 with a year to go before graduating with two science degrees. Having transferred from community college to a public university and working 30 - 40 hours per week, my loans were pretty minimal. In-state tuition was a lot lower then.

My health insurance company decided that none of the hospitalization, surgical or other major medical costs were covered. I didn’t qualify for unemployment disability because my work-study jobs were classified as financial aid and not employment. No one was at fault; had it been a drunk driver or work-related, I could have sued or gotten workers’ comp.

When it was clear that my disability would be permanent, I notified my school and applied for Social Security Disability Insurance. With no income and a family that was barely scraping by before, plus significant ongoing medical costs, there was no way I could pay on my loans. When I applied for relief I was told that I needed to send in copies of the approval from Social Security. The problem? Social Security can take eighteen months to approve applications. My case was obvious enough that I got through in nine, but I have spoken to a woman who waited two years.

Before the six-month grace period had expired, I called the loan company (a contractor working with the lender, Bank of America) and asked about a deferment. I could send a doctor’s note, copies of hospital records, a letter from the admins at the college. None of these qualified me. A copy of my Social Security application wasn’t any good until it was approved. Had I been able to get unemployment or state disability, those papers would have given me a temporary stay, but I did not. Because my previous income was inflated by my loans and grants - which had gone straight to the university - my applications for emergency assistance programs had been denied.

Before the phone was cut off, the harassment from collectors began. They were abusive and demeaning, implying at one turn that I was a deadbeat who deserved my misfortune and at the next that I could just make money magically appear. They called my father, who was already devastated that he had so little to share with his suddenly handicapped child, and insinuated that he was on the hook for my loans. (He wasn’t. I was an adult student and had been emancipated as a minor anyway).

When I explained why I could not make the minimum payment, one agent told me, “you should have thought of that before you applied for the loan.” How was this supposed to change my decision making? That is why I had had health insurance, and one of the reasons why I was trying to get an education.

I became homeless. I slept on friends’ and relatives’ floors, finally got Social Security and stable housing. When I contacted the note holder I was told that the minimum payment was $350 - nearly half of my $800 per month disability check. Upon default the loans had been paid by the Department of Education, bundled with other defaulted loans and sold off to a debt collector for pennies. They had doubled the principal with penalties and fees. They are also exempt from the relief process that binds the original lender through the Federal guarantee, so I could not apply to clear them once I had proper documentation. The company was free to decide how many regular payments bring a loan into good standing. When I pressed one agent for a number, she finally admitted that I should not to expect them to be reclassified until they were fully paid off.

Had I been able to return to school part-time, I might have been able to finish my degrees and qualify for a job that would have allowed me to support myself while working within my limitations (my work experience is in poorly-paid manual work that I can no longer do). The university staff were very sympathetic but could neither allow me to return nor release my transcripts while I had loans in default. I did find several incredibly generous instructors who allowed me to audit classes - and even encouraged me to participate fully and held onto my grades in the hope of turning them in for credit once I could enroll again - but eventually it became too painful to pursue something I would never get to use.

Every few years my loans get flipped and I get dunning calls from some new company that tries to imply that I owe them twice what the last bunch of scammers claimed, which is double the bill from the one before. They are liars. I owe the Federal government about four thousand dollars, which I would be happy to repay either at payments of $50 per month or once I can get my degrees and a job.

These lowlifes threaten to garnishee my Social Security and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. Even if I had the money I wouldn’t give it to such sleazeballs.

In October Kyle McCarthy, Stef Gray, and Robert Applebaum started Occupy Student Debt and look at what it has blossomed into- quite a MOVEMENT!  Check us out in Van Jones’ New York Times Bestseller, Rebuild The Dream!!! 

Each state should pass a law stating that in order to borrow money to pay for a state college high school seniors must attend a student loan debt lecture given by college seniors - not the school finance office. In other words…don’t go to college on student loans…it’s just too risky. Once the pool of incoming fresh meat dries up the colleges and lenders will have a reason to make some changes, but as long as there are new suckers to be had this nightmare will continue. It may be too late for a lot of you, but you all could really help others by getting involved in warning young people about the trap that’s been set for them.

Mark Twain did it.  Henry Ford did it.  Johnny Unitas did it, too.  So did Burt Reynolds, Wayne Newton, Donald Trump, Jose Canseco, and MC Hammer.  Even George Jefferson did it when, after “moving on up,” he started moving back down.  Millions and millions of people have done it.  So why can’t I?

            What all these guys did, what I can’t do, is file for bankruptcy.  All of them made bad investments, borrowed too much money, and maybe spent too much too. But when the courts saw the drastic discrepancy between what they owed and what they were likely to earn, they interceded and worked out a deal that allowed them to pay only a fraction of their debts. 

            And what about me?  I made a bad investment.  I invested in myself and in the future of our education system, two lost causes in retrospect.  I borrowed too much.  The federal government was only too happy to subsidize my borrowing of significant sums for every year of graduate school.  I spent too much.  I went to study in another country in pursuit of my chosen career path, and traveled to still others in the effort to advance its cause.  But what did it all come to in the end?  A whole lotta nothin’.

            Actually, far less than nothing.  I wish it was nothing.  But, no, my hard work and determination and years of sacrifice came to -$62,000, -$77,000 with the collection agency’s punitive penalties.  And who hired the collection agency?  The same federal government that was only too happy to subsidize the loans in the first place.

            In the eyes of my government I’m sure my paltry five-digit debt looks like nothing.  After all, that government itself is in debt well over $15 trillion.  And to all those famous people I named above too, I’m sure my debt, equal to the amount which an unsuccessful stockbroker spends on a car, looks like a trifle.  Well, maybe not to Mark Twain or Henry Ford, but there’s been a lot of inflation in the century since they went bankrupt.  In any case, unlike the federal government, which doesn’t really seem to have to answer to anybody, and unlike the famous names on my list, who at some point earned oodles of cash, I am and have always been worth nothing.

            Oh yeah, I’ve got an education…in philosophy.  But philosophy factories that pay six-figures don’t seem to exist.  In fact, no philosophy factories seem to exist at all.  There are only universities, and they are cutting back on the humanities more and more.  Besides, I failed my first dissertation defense anyway, and my funding and visa ran out before I was able to try again.  So I didn’t even get the chance to impart to another generation of duped teenagers the worthless academic wisdom to which I’d devoted an entire decade.  My hopes and dreams and ten years of studying and reading and writing 80 hours a week were dashed to pieces, along with my right to live in the place where, for eight years—most of my twenties—I’d called home. 

            And when I came back to America with my tail between my legs, devastated at having to abandon a ten-year project that was my plan for the future, did the federal government receive me with a friendly, “welcome back to the land of opportunity?”  No.  All they said was, “where’s our money?”

            Where’s your money?  It’s in the same place that your promises of success with hard work and education are, the same place that my happy and productive future is, the same place as your American Dream: the wonderful, magical fantasy world of Neverneverland.

            No one’s going to give me those ten years of my life back.  No one’s going to give me back the space in my brain that I spent years filling with what turns out to be completely useless information.  And no one’s going to give you back your money.  All I can do now is teach English part-time at an hourly rate, and the money I make from that I need for things like eating, and housing, and paying for gas and car insurance to get to my low-paying job.  Oh, and health insurance that I won’t use and can’t afford.  Just accept it, federal government, and let’s agree to a lower amount that I can reasonably afford.  Don’t worry, you’ll never be as shafted by taking less as I have been by buying all your BS.

            Johnny Unitas was too old to play football again.  MC Hammer was too old to make cool music again.  Burt Reynolds had a miraculous comeback, and George Jefferson had a minor one.  Wayne Newton and Donald Trump sold their proverbial souls to make money again after they went bankrupt.  Unfortunately, no one wants to buy mine.  Unless, you do, federal government.  I’ll sell you my soul for $77,000, what do you say?  I’ll even sign in blood and everything.  But I must warn you, it’s pretty well disillusioned, pretty well corrupted, and pretty much broken.

            If that doesn’t work for you, how about you just let me declare bankruptcy like all those other schmucks that made some bad decisions and now have to live with them?  After all, what is to me a tidal wave threatening to destroy my life is only a drop in the ocean of your own financial stupidity.

            Bankruptcy for student loans, because we were our own bad investments.