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Author Topic: Student Debt
Mycroft_
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posted 13 March 2003 08:52 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
As far as I can figure I owe something over $50,000 in student loans.

In January 2002, the Bank of Nova Scotia declared me in default of my Canada and Ontario Student Loans.

I had received no notice, whatsoever, warning me that I was about to go in default. Moreover, where previously I had received monthly invoices informing me of how much I owed in total and how much I was to pay that month I received no notice after the expiry of my interest relief informing me of how much my monthly payments were or when I was to start paying.

Also, I was never asked to sign a consolidation agreement.

Is there anything I can do to get the bank to reclaim my loan from default or get the loan forgiven?

Wah!


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
fatcalf
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posted 13 March 2003 08:59 PM      Profile for fatcalf        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I find this puzzling:

quote:
Is there anything I can do to get the bank to reclaim my loan from default or get the loan forgiven?

I'm not trying to be insulting or anything, but why the heck do you think you should be forgiven vis a vis paying back your loan. Didn't you borrow the money with the expectation of eventually paying it back?


From: vancouver | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 13 March 2003 09:17 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Tuition has skyrocketed in the past few years while student grants have been eliminated. One of the things the government promised when they got rid of grants was that student debt above a certain amount would be forgiven for those unable to pay.

HRDC claims that:

quote:
For borrowers that have exhausted all their debt assistance options, the Government of Canada will reduce the principal of the loan to a maximum of $10,000 or 50% of the principal, whichever is less

However, according to canadastudentdebt.com:
quote:
Of the 10,000 people they expected to qualify, only 60 qualified the first year. Apparently its now up to 450 people in all of Canada. No answer to where the remaining $11,000,000 that was budgeted for this program went to!

[ 13 March 2003: Message edited by: Mycroft ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Flowbee
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posted 13 March 2003 09:30 PM      Profile for Flowbee     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
He's not asking for forgiveness on his loan amount, only that the classification of "default" be removed from his loan status.

Mycroft were you attending full-time in Jan. 2002? I assume not due to your mention of being on an interst-relief period, but the reason I ask is that it would coincide with the banks departure from the student loan scene (at least in terms of issuing new ones). I work as a fin. aid administrator and we had a large # of students at that time who didn't know that they now had to keep their bank apprised of their student status and had their loans go into repayment without their knowing.

Are you making payments currently? I am surprised that you have $50000 in student loans as Ontario generally provides a form of loan remission on funding borrowed above the $7000 / academic year amount. Unless like me you were in school for 8 years.


From: Id | Registered: Dec 2001  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 13 March 2003 09:44 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I wasn't in school Jan 2002. My father was sick for a few years before dying in 1995 so this rather prolonged my academic career.

What had happened was my interest relief expired around September 2001, I had originally intended to reapply for interest relief but I got a job so I decided I'd just try paying my monthly payments but I never got an invoice (and since I had gotten statements in the past from the bank stating that my total debt was x and my monthly payments were y I had no reason not to expect to get an invoice this time) and then in January I was informed that I was in default. When I asked why I didn't get an invoice I was told the bank was under no obligation to send me one. Somehow, I'm just supposed to magically know what my monthly payments are.

Oddly, a week or so after being so informed I was sent an application for interest relief! I filled it out and was rejected.


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 14 March 2003 12:39 AM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
P.S.

I've gone through my papers and they've reminded me of something. Initially, in September 2001, I asked the Bank of Nova Scotia for an interest relief application. None came. In mid-October I was hired at Goldfarb Consulting and, with a regular income, decided that I would see if I could pay my monthly minimum but I received no invoice informing me of what my monthly payment was (a departure from previous years). In late December or early January the bank declared me in default. Then, in February, I received a letter from the dated February 1st 2002 with the long awaited interest relief application.

It seems bizarre that the bank waited until *after* declaring me in default before finally sending me my application. I filled out the application, sent it in, and was rejected on the basis of being in default. A catch-22. The bank should have waited a reasonable period after sending me the interest relief application before declaring me in default rather than declaring me in default before sending me the application.

It seems clear to me that the bank made an error and I would appreciate it if you could instruct the bank to remedy this by recalling my Canada and Ontario Student Loans and allowing me to either apply for interest relief or attempt to pay my monthly minimums.


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 14 March 2003 01:55 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Didn't the banks give up the student loan program in 2000? I know the BC student loan paperwork all comes straight from the government, or their designated contractors, and they all say "If you cashed a loan since August 2000, you are on the direct lend program blah blah blah."

The BC Student Loan Service Bureau is actually a private contractor with the BC government, and I have to say that they are the sorriest operation I've ever seen in my life. They can't get anything straight.

I got sent a "reminder notice" complete with signable contract to start repayments a MONTH after I resumed going to school after a four-month break. I had to send them a fax reminding them that their recordkeeping was less than stellar and followed up with a phone call. The guy admitted they had screwed up and that I was back on interest-free no repayment required.

Morons.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
beluga2
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posted 14 March 2003 03:55 AM      Profile for beluga2     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I swear to God that the Canadian Student Loan system is the most spectacularly fucked-up bureaucratic nightmare in the history of the material universe. After my experiences over the last few years, I can barely think the words "student loan" without collapsing into a raging, uncontrollable bout of Tourette's syndrome.

Here's just a sample of some of the lowlights:

- I was unfortunate enough to be one of those already attending school when the Liberals enacted their idiotic "let's-let-the-banks-run-the-student-loan-system" experiment. As a result, my loans ended up being chopped into multiple chunks, some Federal, some Provincial, some with the government, some with the bank, and
nobody seemed to have any clue as to how said chunks related to each other. Though the madness has settled down in recent years, I still have to make two entirely separate and unrelated monthly payments just on the Provincial portion of my loan: one directly to the BC government (for loans I got up to 1995) and one to the goddamn bank (for loans I got after 1995).

- I also experienced the problem of the bank "jumping the gun": in June of one year, I was abruptly informed that my loan was "in default" --

and I was still taking full-time classes! They simply lost, or ate, or shredded the forms I'd filled out and had no idea I was still in school!

- Then there was the time I received my loan-cheque for the semester and deposited it in my account. But they thought it was a loan payment and used it to pay down part of my previous loans, leaving my account bone-fucking-dry! (Believe me, I lost several years off my life in a state of utter panic until I got that one straightened out!)

- My Interest Relief finally expired about a year ago, and I swear -- this is no exaggeration -- I have spent the

entire last year trying to activate that partial-loan-remission thing. I filled out the applications, complete with statements of income and so on, no fewer than five times before they finally processed it last December. Every time I'd fill it out and hand it in, I wouldn't hear from them for weeks, and then they'd tell me they couldn't process it because my loan payments weren't up to date!

At last, in December, everything seemed to fall into place, and I finally started making monthly payments at the new level. But, a month later, the bank called again and said that I was behind again! They'd completely forgotten that they'd approved the new payments! I had to literally take the letter of approval that they'd sent to me and show it to them physically before they would accept that I actually had approval. Sweet sainted jesus christ almighty.

- But the absolute worst student-loan episode I experienced was without a doubt the most shocking example of bureaucratic incompetence I have ever experienced in my entire life. What happened was that I wanted to transfer my loan from Langara College to SFU (I'd applied to both, and didn't expect to get into SFU, and was pleasantly surprised when I did). So, simple, right? Take my file, delete "Langara" and replace it with "SFU."

Wrong. It just so happened that at that moment the BC government, in its infinite wisdom, had decided to concentrate the entire BC loan system in one big office in Victoria. As a result, they had a wee bit of a "backlog" in processing the applications, or so they told me in August.

No shit. I'll spare you all the horrors, but suffice it to say that I did not receive my loan for the fall semester until

the first week in December! Literally, on the day of my last exam for the term, my fucking loan finally arrived. Every single day for the preceding three months, I dutifully tried to get thru on the phone to the idiots in Victoria, only to endure the worst demons-peeling-the-flesh-from-my-bones voice-mail torture I've ever encountered. Maybe one day in five, I'd actually get thru to a human being, only to be told that they were still, um, "behind."

Fortunately, my parents lived right near SFU, so I was still able to attend classes. But it was far from ideal -- I spent the semester living out of boxes in my parents' basement, sleeping on a mattress on the floor next to the kitty litter. And trying to restrain myself from hiring a veritable host of hitmen to "take out" the entire student-loan bureaucracy.

Arghh!!! Curses be upon them!

[ 14 March 2003: Message edited by: beluga2 ]


From: vancouvergrad, BCSSR | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 14 March 2003 08:34 AM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
http://www.canadastudentdebt.ca/
From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 14 March 2003 08:55 AM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, I've printed up my letters to my MP, my MPP, Jane Stewart and the bank's ombudsman and will send them off today. Also going to call HRDC's "case management team".
From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 14 March 2003 08:58 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That really sucks, Mycroft. Something for me to look forward to, I guess - I've racked up about the same amount of student loans.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Doug M.
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posted 14 March 2003 10:04 AM      Profile for Doug M.        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I'll spare you all the horrors, but suffice it to say that I did not receive my loan for the fall semester until

the first week in December! Literally, on the day of my last exam for the term, my fucking loan finally arrived. Every single day for the preceding three months, I dutifully tried to get thru on the phone to the idiots in Victoria, only to endure the worst demons-peeling-the-flesh-from-my-bones voice-mail torture I've ever encountered. Maybe one day in five, I'd actually get thru to a human being, only to be told that they were still, um, "behind."


Yup. I have been locked in battle, attempting to claim my student loan, since early fall. Just yesterday, I deftly navigated that same computerised call-centre torture and was told that I my loan should arrive next week.

In the meantime, I have burdened everybody from my grandparents to my little sister with short term loans that they can't afford to make to me...without them, I quite simply would have had to drop out of school, in this, my final year.


From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 14 March 2003 11:34 AM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, I'm sending off letters to my MP, MPPs, Jane Stewart, HRDC, Elizabeth Witmer and the bank. Don't know if I have a case and I know I should have done this a year ago but here's my argument:


1) The Bank of Nova Scotia did not send me any statement in late 2001 or early 2002 informing me of how much I owed in total or of what my expected minimum payment was. They had previously sent such statements and this created a reasonable expectation that they would send me an invoice or statement informing me that my loan was due and how much I was expected to pay. After finding work in mid-October I was prepared to attempt to meet my monthly minimum payments.

2) The Bank of Nova Scotia did not send me an interest relief application immediately upon request in September 2001. . The application was not sent until after the Bank declared me in default Having sent me an application for interest relief, the Bank should have given me a reasonable period to return it before declaring me in default.

3) The Bank of Nova Scotia never sent me a loan consolidation agreement as required.


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
paxamillion
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posted 14 March 2003 11:38 AM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
One thing I learned is that one can't have one's student debt obligations written off by declaring bankruptcy either.
From: the process of recovery | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 14 March 2003 11:42 AM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The CFS is challenging that in court. The case is scheduled to be heard in the spring.

There is also a move afoot to launch a class action suit against the banks for bank errors resulting in default.

BTW, if you declare bankruptcy are you barred from entering certain professions and is the bar permanent or just until the bankruptcy gets discharged (or for a fixed time following)?


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 14 March 2003 11:46 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
You mean like Law?
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 14 March 2003 08:56 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Heh. I don't think it would matter in my case, since as far as I know office workers don't much require an extensive catalog of one's personal finances.

Now, as to being a professor with a doctorate...


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 14 March 2003 11:49 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Premier Bernard Landry made a pitch Friday to increase Quebec's low birthrate with an offer to reimburse 50 per cent of student loans to people who have children within five years of finishing their studies.

From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 15 March 2003 12:35 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
They could.. *GASP* encourage more immigration!

Or perhaps quit screwing around with the Rest of Canada all the time so that there's net in-migration from other provinces.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 01 April 2003 12:58 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Good News! Just got a call from HRDC and they've talked to the Bank and gotten them to recall my loan. I followed up with the bank and they've recalled not only my Canada student loan but my Ontario Student loan and the bank guaranteed portion as well so I'm out of debt hell and am now merely in debt purgatory (since I still have to repay).

If you have a problem with your loands, write to the HRDC Canada student loan Case Management Team!

And check out http://www.canadastudentdebt.ca for advice and help!


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 01 April 2003 01:11 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
HRDC doesn't play April Fool's jokes on people, do they?
From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 01 April 2003 01:15 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hee hee hee. I doubt it.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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