Can you be denied trying to pay on a balance

[Meresgi]

So another topic regarding my fight with the Art Institute online. My account was in appeal up until today when they denied it, well turns out that while it was in the appeal process they say it was STILL rolling on and each month they wasted on the appeal was another month closer they pushed it to sending to a collections agency. Now they say on the 30th of this month they will give it to a 3rd party.

Now I offered them 5$ a month payment on the balance, I told them this was all I could afford (not far from it, im going to college and have very little work and paying off a CC bill).

The woman on the phone said they would deny that payment outright and send my balance to collections. Now is this accurate? From my basic understanding, if I am trying to pay on a balance in earnest, can it be denied? My father in law told me they have to accept any form of payment from me as long as I make steady payments and never miss one.

In the meantime I have audited my account and found that while they say they are charging me 448$ pre credit our (fucking insane) that my total tuition cost - any tuition reimbursements total out to 660$ per credit hour.

Also the ledger they sent me is missing some of the classes they are claiming I am being charged for, now these classes are listed on my grade summary online, but are not included on my ledger..basically all the information they are giving me contradicts other information given by them.

I'm looking for a good Anti-Trust lawyer or some legal counsel in the area of Columbia, Maryland but at the same time I am trying to make sure they can't send my balance to collections.

Edit: Also I honestly do not have the 1702$ they are asking for, while Im struggling to pay off my CC bill I have hardly any income (100$ a week if that) and I am attending college full time to try to get my degree in an accelerated manor (at a legit college)

[Melena]

Most county's have a 1-800 # you can call to be referred for some legal advice. I had to do it many years ago over a workman's comp case. I'd recommend getting hold of your city/county's bar association and see if they can refer you to someone.

[hey]

The woman on the phone said they would deny that payment outright and send my balance to collections. Now is this accurate? From my basic understanding, if I am trying to pay on a balance in earnest, can it be denied? My father in law told me they have to accept any form of payment from me as long as I make steady payments and never miss one.

Now I offered them 5$ a month payment on the balance

You didn't actually think they would take that, did you? Offering to pay back a $1.7k debt over 30 years is absurd.

Yes, it is accurate. If you can't pay it back in a reasonable amount of time, it goes to collections.

[Meresgi]

You didn't actually think they would take that, did you? Offering to pay back a $1.7k debt over 30 years is absurd.

Yes, it is accurate. If you can't pay it back in a reasonable amount of time, it goes to collections.

Well their only payment plan was either 1/2 of the amount in 2 months or 1/3rd in 3months. That was it according to the representative. Also from what I was told by some people, as long as you make an earnest attempt to pay off a balance like that, they have to accept it. When I make around 400$ a month if that, and then have to include 200$ CC payment, and then another 150$ on gas, school supplies and food expenses... that leaves me with 50$ whole dollars for the month as free cash, which usually ends up going right out for some emergency.

[Xno Kappa]

Wassup with everyone on BG being broke lately lol? This bad economy stuff must be real lol.

[Dantrag]

Question: Is this a school loan? If yes, are you still in school?

[Salodin]

If you're in school why are you paying a loan? Iirc you don't pay on school loans when in school; they do still accrue interest, but you pay nothing till you're out of school.

[Acturus]

Forgive me for not knowing the details on how you acquired this debt. I'm only going off of the numbers you're citing...

The definition of an "earnest" implies that you are making a determined effort with sincere intent. I don't know what the legal definition is (if there is one), but you're offering $5 on $1700. That's one third of one percent on the principle. You're not even covering the interest accrual on that debt. This assumes that there is interest on your debt, but if there isn't, the actuarial value of the payment plan you "could" set up would be based on a timely payoff of the money owed.

0.29% of your balance as a monthly payment is not what I would consider an "earnest attempt".

[solanis]

Wassup with everyone on BG being broke lately lol? This bad economy stuff must be real lol.

maybe success in ffxi is inversely proportional to success irl

[miokomioko]

I think your options for "payment plans" and such go out the window if you drop out. I think. You might want to look into it, but I remember hearing that if you didn't complete some certain amount of coursework, they want the money all back now now now instead of trusting you to pay it back over (a long) time.

[Melena]

From the sounds of it though, they've been fudging numbers and courses he took to drive up the balance. My wife is dealing with something similar when she was in michigan. She was working on her nursing degree and the school she went to got bought out and jacked her tuition up the last semester. She didn't have the extra $200 for the semester since her bf at the time was a douche so she dropped out and now they are wanting something stupid like 1800 dollars over a 400 dollar bill.

[kuronosan]

So another topic regarding my fight with the Art Institute online. My account was in appeal up until today when they denied it, well turns out that while it was in the appeal process they say it was STILL rolling on and each month they wasted on the appeal was another month closer they pushed it to sending to a collections agency. Now they say on the 30th of this month they will give it to a 3rd party.

Now I offered them 5$ a month payment on the balance, I told them this was all I could afford (not far from it, im going to college and have very little work and paying off a CC bill).

The woman on the phone said they would deny that payment outright and send my balance to collections. Now is this accurate? From my basic understanding, if I am trying to pay on a balance in earnest, can it be denied? My father in law told me they have to accept any form of payment from me as long as I make steady payments and never miss one.

In the meantime I have audited my account and found that while they say they are charging me 448$ pre credit our (fucking insane) that my total tuition cost - any tuition reimbursements total out to 660$ per credit hour.

Also the ledger they sent me is missing some of the classes they are claiming I am being charged for, now these classes are listed on my grade summary online, but are not included on my ledger..basically all the information they are giving me contradicts other information given by them.

I'm looking for a good Anti-Trust lawyer or some legal counsel in the area of Columbia, Maryland but at the same time I am trying to make sure they can't send my balance to collections.

Edit: Also I honestly do not have the 1702$ they are asking for, while Im struggling to pay off my CC bill I have hardly any income (100$ a week if that) and I am attending college full time to try to get my degree in an accelerated manor (at a legit college)

Legally you have to pay the minimum payment. It all depends on the state law, but if all you can afford is $5/month you have a case and they can't legally send it to corrections if you are telling them you are intending to pay. They can only do that if you don't. If you send a letter and document that you are honestly trying to pay your balance they cannot say you are defaulting and they're charging it off to a collection agency. They're doing this because they don't want to lose money on the interest.

It's a popular thing for asshole lenders to do. Of course, they wonder why people are broke in the first place.

Get a lawyer and have documentation that you notified them of intent to pay.

If you're in school why are you paying a loan? Iirc you don't pay on school loans when in school; they do still accrue interest, but you pay nothing till you're out of school.

Only federal loans are required to be deferred until you're out of school. If you get a private loan you pay it immediately. These "business" schools that are just nothing more than money-hungry assholes posing as credible "institutions of higher learning" don't operate on federal loans, which is why their tuition is so ridiculously high. It cost me $20k to get my Bachelor's and it will cost me another $20k to get my Master's/PhD. The average 'University of [blank]' tuition is $40,000 for a "Bachelor's in Drawing Anime".

In short, they just want people to have a degree and don't seem to really care about the rest. Which is fine, I guess, if all you want is a degree in your field. It sucks if you actually want to be educated.

[Ksandra]

that royally sucks.

It may be too late to do this, and it probably isn't the best option (though the only one I can think of). Did you try getting a raise to your loans at your current school? Schools are sometimes willing to increase your loan higher than what you need for classes to help pay to live (rent/food/etc.). Especially for those living on their own. My loan gave me extra since I am student teaching on top of going to school, so we got some comfort room since I couldn't be substituting at the same time.

I had to get a raise on the loan, and they had me show proof of expenses, and write a letter why I needed it (can't work at the same time).

It took about a month to get approved though which sucks if AI is threatening collections. But IF you can get that extra money, you could pay off the AI loan and maybe even have some left over for safety.

[edit] if you do try this don't go in saying "I have another school loan to pay" as your reasoning. You can list it as part of your expenses, but make it sound like you need the extra money to help pay for rent/food. Then when you get it, you can do w/e the fuck you want with it.

[Meresgi]

Question: Is this a school loan? If yes, are you still in school?

Its my balance they say I owe, I left the school and withdrew after 1 class but they do this thing where they do 2 classes a semester and because I withdrew from 1 course w/o taking the other, they say I withdrew from the semester early and sent back my Stafford Loan and turned around and charged me for the class...but here's the thing. They want 1702$...but they say they charge 448$ per credit hour..well 1702/448 = 3.8. And my course was only a 3 credit hour course. Not to mention NONE of their numbers add up on all this shit.

You're not even covering the interest accrual on that debt.

There is no interest on this debt, I asked them and had it confirmed, it's merely a balance and does not acquire any interest whatsoever.


Another thing, I dropped out in March, they never notified me about this balance until July (I have the 1st email on record) I disputed this and sent in an appeal in July and it took until roughly July 25th to today for it to be denied and NOW they are saying I have 3 days left. Basically they have been counting time against me while they have been holding up any ruling and not notifying me at all of the debt.

It took about a month to get approved though which sucks if AI is threatening collections. But IF you can get that extra money, you could pay off the AI loan and maybe even have some left over for safety.

I'm actually in the process of doing this for my credit card bill as it's been draining me, but I don't get the reimbursement till Mid November at the earliest.

I just bought some ink for the printer and i'm printing out a letter stating I have made an offer to pay 5$ each month in an attempt to pay off my balance, sent an email as well. The reason I ask about this stuff is I know my father-in-law had a ticket once for around 400$ wherein he went to the judge and told him that at the time, he could only pay 5$ a month on it, because he was dealing with a lot of bills. The judge basically said to him, and this is from his mouth not from documents ive seen, that because he was trying to pay off the balance, he couldn't be locked up for not paying the full 400$ ticket.

The county I live in apparently offers walk in legal advice on Tuesdays, missed it today though as it's only between 9-12.

[miokomioko]

Wow, now that it's cleared up a bit, that's very retarded of them.

It's an outstanding balance and they are not accepting anything but payment-in-full? Douchebags... and definitely legally questionable in my opinion. Have you called up their offices and tried to get to the bottom of how they think 448 * 3 = 1702?

[Soa]

I remember my former dentist tried to pull something like this on me. I had about $1000 worth of work done and paid them $200 after getting the bill. A week later I got a letter in the mail threatening to send me to collections if I didn't pay the full balance by the end of that month.

I went to a lawyer and he told me that as long as you are making monthly payments they can't legally send you to a collection agency, even if you aren't paying the minimum. This was probably 8-9 years ago so things may be different now, and I'm not certain if that was a state law or a federal one so that may also affect the legality of it.

[Meresgi]

Wow, now that it's cleared up a bit, that's very retarded of them.

It's an outstanding balance and they are not accepting anything but payment-in-full? Douchebags... and definitely legally questionable in my opinion. Have you called up their offices and tried to get to the bottom of how they think 448 * 3 = 1702?

Yeah, its very shady, and they won't answer my questions about their numbers. On top of that I have sent 10 emails to this 1 woman about how long the college is required to keep a balance before it sends to a 3rd party, because I want her to admit that 3 months is not the time frame...but she keeps replaying with "Oh can you take out a loan to pay us? I can give you 50% off" and other emails trying to sidetrack me.

I went to a lawyer and he told me that as long as you are making monthly payments they can't legally send you to a collection agency, even if you aren't paying the minimum. This was probably 8-9 years ago so things may be different now, and I'm not certain if that was a state law or a federal one so that may also affect the legality of it.

Do I need their consent or can I just mail them a check for $5 and if they cash it say "Well now you're taking this payment"?


Edit: BIG thing I just found out, I went to see how much my loans were and where they went...well during the months of going to AiO I had $23,210 worth of loans and grants sent out BUT the college says that they only charged me 13,488$...where the fuck did $9,000 run off to? I sure as hell didnt get a refund check that big.

Edit: When asked about the $9,000 missing, the person I have been in contact with basically just said "I'm done with you, your balance is going to a 3rd party collection" and is now forwarding my emails to someone else.

[Darus Grey]

maybe success in ffxi is inversely proportional to success irl

I know your comment isn't really serious but... =0

I'd be hard pressed to remember the actual names of the studies, but it's quite the opposite. Infact gamers are a whole have a much higher median income(mainly because being a gamer by default means being much more tech savvy than average, even the dumbest gamers have significantly more technical knowledge than the average).

Hard working earnest people are successful in all spheres of life, the prime difference is motivation and incentive within those spheres.

[Azull]

If the account goes to a 3rd party collection it will be put on your credit report. When that happens.. dispute it. When you dispute it provide any and all information you have to the credit bureau to help your cause. If disputing the item doesnt work it will fall of your credit report in 7 years (from the date of the accounts last activity with the school)*

*If this is specifically for a student loan the laws may be different.

[Ksandra]

If the account goes to a 3rd party collection it will be put on your credit report. When that happens.. dispute it. When you dispute it provide any and all information you have to the credit bureau to help your cause. If disputing the item doesnt work it will fall of your credit report in 7 years (from the date of the accounts last activity with the school)*

*If this is specifically for a student loan the laws may be different.

Naw it's the same. I blame myself for not pushing my husband to take it up with the credit bureau, but he had a dispute with Sallie Mae (college loans) which fucked up his credit. And it was all their fault. Basically, he set up direct payment and then never noticed that shit wasn't getting taken out. 6 months later he gets a notification that they sent the report to collections/credit bureau for not paying on the loan. When he called they SAW that he had direct payment set up, and couldn't figure out why the system wasn't taking it. They still blamed him for not monitoring the money not getting taken out of his account.

We should have fought it to have it removed from the credit report, but he had to go through a lot of phone calls with SM in the first place and he basically said "fuck it" and we payed the missing balance.

Anyway, long story short, it's on his credit for 7 years, and it took quite a bit to get him back to a normal credit level. Luckily, he had near perfect credit before that so the ding didn't bring him down TOO low.