I've been trading for 6 month now. haven't been able to pay off my student loan since being laid off last year. Starting to make some money as a trader but not consistent. My question is, do I need to remove the default status on my loans before I can make a payment again? A guy from ECMC(educational credit management corp) keeps calling me saying that if I make $100 payment for 9 consecutive months, I can have my default status removed and start paying off my loans again at a better interest rate. He claims that ECMC is nonprofit org and is not a debt collector. Is this true? or should I not deal them? thx.
There's a govenment associated body that does "consolidation loans" for student loans at a low interest rate. You can only do it once, but now's a good time. I did it to my undergrad loans, and I was stuck with 7.625 for many years (but at the time of my consolidation that was a really good rate. Google it, and you'll find it for sure. You can also ask for a forbearance, which is where they'll let you not make payments (but still accrue interest) for a year at a time. I used one like 8 or 9 years ago when I quit my job to start flipping houses and wasn't sure if I'd make enough $. That way your credit isn't tarnished (it gets a little ding, but nothing like being late on payments).
I don't know specifics about student loans but generally these organizations that are offering help to everybody are funded by the lenders. They will never reveal that of course and they are all non profits or agencies of some sort and appear to be very benign and some are and some are not so...
If you got laid off why did you not defer your student loan payments? Being a trader is not employment unless you get paid a salary.
thx for the post. does loan consolidation require removing the 'default' status from my credit? why is now a good time in particular? (b/c the interest rates is low?) and what kind of rate could I get if I went ahead and consolidated it now. thx again,
thx for the post. I had already defered it before once. And my life was in a sh*thole during that particular time. I ran from it. I regret big time
I've heard of horror stories where students starting paying these credit collectors for months just to get their status to 'active' only to find out that these collectors have sold the papers to other collectors, who in turn harrassed the students to make payments. It is why I have avoided dealing with collectors upto this point, but ECMC seems a bit different. they weren't asking for $1k/mo either. just $50-100/mo for 9 months, so I can remove the 'default' status on my credit...this way, after 9 months, I can consolidate my loans at a better rate.