skinner PO box
Nov. 25th, 2003 03:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glauconso I've been delinquent on my student loan since...um...late 2001, I think.
at first, I was just a month or two behind but still making regular payments, then I got a lot more behind and ended up being five or six months delinquent by January of 2003. the letters from the student loan servicing agency had grown pretty threatening and mean by that point, but blood from a stone and all that, and at least they didn't have a current phone number for me.
when I found myself suddenly making a decent income again in April, I started making payments again, but there was no way I could possibly pay off the whole thing at once, so I'd pay each month's regular payment, plus whatever disposable income I happened to have lying around that month. I figured that eventually I would catch up. this led to some interesting situations though, because their dunning letters are automatically generated when you pass certain milestones of delinquency (90 days past due, 120 days past due, 150 days past due, etc). thus every time I made a payment, I would drop below one of these threshholds, but then four days (or ten days or whatever) later, I'd pass back over one of the electronic temporal trip wires and an auto-generated letter would issue forth: "you are now X days past due. we're going to come by and sever your posterior cruciate ligament if you don't make a payment mui pronto."
even though I was happy to be catching up, I felt kinda crappy about receiving a nastygram every two weeks or so. I felt like I was getting negative reinforcement for behaving properly.
so last month, I finally caught up. no more 60 days past due. no more 30 days past due. when I sent out my payment on the 15th, I paid the balance due for this month, the small remainder of the balance due from all previous months, and even rounded up by $25 so that I'm actually slightly ahead.
this morning, I got a congratulations card from the student loan agency.
at first, I was just a month or two behind but still making regular payments, then I got a lot more behind and ended up being five or six months delinquent by January of 2003. the letters from the student loan servicing agency had grown pretty threatening and mean by that point, but blood from a stone and all that, and at least they didn't have a current phone number for me.
when I found myself suddenly making a decent income again in April, I started making payments again, but there was no way I could possibly pay off the whole thing at once, so I'd pay each month's regular payment, plus whatever disposable income I happened to have lying around that month. I figured that eventually I would catch up. this led to some interesting situations though, because their dunning letters are automatically generated when you pass certain milestones of delinquency (90 days past due, 120 days past due, 150 days past due, etc). thus every time I made a payment, I would drop below one of these threshholds, but then four days (or ten days or whatever) later, I'd pass back over one of the electronic temporal trip wires and an auto-generated letter would issue forth: "you are now X days past due. we're going to come by and sever your posterior cruciate ligament if you don't make a payment mui pronto."
even though I was happy to be catching up, I felt kinda crappy about receiving a nastygram every two weeks or so. I felt like I was getting negative reinforcement for behaving properly.
so last month, I finally caught up. no more 60 days past due. no more 30 days past due. when I sent out my payment on the 15th, I paid the balance due for this month, the small remainder of the balance due from all previous months, and even rounded up by $25 so that I'm actually slightly ahead.
this morning, I got a congratulations card from the student loan agency.
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-25 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-25 04:20 pm (UTC)Congratulations. I'm amazed that they do this sort of thing.
When I was in grad school one of my officemates got word that the government had effectively given up on collecting on his student loans. He thought this was really cool; as a taxpayer I wanted to strangle him. I took it as a sign that the federal government was too big and stupid to collect student loans.
I guess I was way wrong.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-25 04:29 pm (UTC)but they're a private agency handling a GSL that came from a private lender, so it's entirely possible that your officemate was correct when it comes to perkins or something like that.
the only perkins I ever had was paid back in full ahead of schedule, but it was about one-tenth of the size of the GSL that I'm still paying.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-25 09:15 pm (UTC)The letters never bothered me, but the phone calls. Yikes. Congratulations.
the card
Date: 2003-11-26 06:36 am (UTC)