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$12 Billion In Private Student Loan Debt May Be Wiped Away By Missing Paperwork (nytimes.com)
New submitter cdreimer shares a report from The New York Times (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternate source): Tens of thousands of people who took out private loans to pay for college but have not been able to keep up payments may get their debts wiped away because critical paperwork is missing. The troubled loans, which total at least $5 billion, are at the center of a protracted legal dispute between the student borrowers and a group of creditors who have aggressively pursued them in court after they fell behind on payments. Judges have already dismissed dozens of lawsuits against former students, essentially wiping out their debt, because documents proving who owns the loans are missing. A review of court records by The New York Times shows that many other collection cases are deeply flawed, with incomplete ownership records and mass-produced documentation. Some of the problems playing out now in the $108 billion private student loan market are reminiscent of those that arose from the subprime mortgage crisis a decade ago, when billions of dollars in subprime mortgage loans were ruled uncollectable by courts because of missing or fake documentation. And like those troubled mortgages, private student loans -- which come with higher interest rates and fewer consumer protections than federal loans -- are often targeted at the most vulnerable borrowers, like those attending for-profit schools.
At the center of the storm is one of the nation's largest owners of private student loans, the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts. It is struggling to prove in court that it has the legal paperwork showing ownership of its loans, which were originally made by banks and then sold to investors. National Collegiate is an umbrella name for 15 trusts that hold 800,000 private student loans, totaling $12 billion. More than $5 billion of that debt is in default, according to court filings.
At the center of the storm is one of the nation's largest owners of private student loans, the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts. It is struggling to prove in court that it has the legal paperwork showing ownership of its loans, which were originally made by banks and then sold to investors. National Collegiate is an umbrella name for 15 trusts that hold 800,000 private student loans, totaling $12 billion. More than $5 billion of that debt is in default, according to court filings.
paper in 2017?
This is exactly the scenario that countless spams and clickbait ads have promised,:that if you challenge the bank's record keeping, you can completely free yourself from your mortgage (and here's your $49 kit to help you do it). Except in this case, it's apparently not total bullshit.
Even better for everyone with a PhD in Social Justice that is now cleaning storage closets and being an twitter hero.
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Maybe we can thank them for taking such good care of the loan documentation in the storage closets.
Nullius in verba
What about the fake bills for stuff like web services that some office secretary use to just pay with out checking them very hard.
And why should education put people in debt? Educating young people is what ensures the future of a country.
Looks like the average American will have to bail out yet another greedy creditor. I wonder how big the bonuses will be this time.
"And why should education put people in debt? Educating young people is what ensures the future of a country."
Great. How many scholarships are named after Anonymous Coward?
Even if one agrees that society should bear more of the cost of higher education, that's not a legitimate argument for not paying back a loan - did you justify holding up convenience stores because it went to pay for your attendance at Douchebag College of Illegitimate Rationalizations?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Why should one pay loans back, because it lifes lessons, live up to a contract, real people pay their debts.
There is a free lunch somewhere but you might have to hoof it. Because every collage grad walked up to a education lunch counter and ate the lunch special and not the internet soup line. It is not even like one has to walk between my metaphorical soup kitchens to gain knowledge, entire subject matters are 3 clicks away.
An education can be had for free online in multiple places for free. The accreditation and the degree that go with a what was thought as an education a commodity that has a decreasing value every day past that day in may.
I love how we always talk about personal responsibility and corporate responsibility, but it's always the little guy that gets hit by it. Why is it the borrowers ethical responsibility to pay the loan back, but not the owner of the loan's responsibility to actually track what people owe them? Seems to me that ethically, if you can't prove someone owes you something, then they don't owe you jack.
Dang! This almost makes me wish I had student loans instead of working 50 hours a week to get through college and pay as I went. It would have been a lot easier.
On the other hand, _if_ the lender can't demonstrate you owe them, couldn't it be that they no longer own the loan? What happens if you pay them and it turns out someone else bought the loan and now wants to be paid? I'm guessing there are scenarios where you'd end up paying twice.
You should pay your legitimate bills, but its reasonable to make sure you are paying the correct party to protect yourself.
"deeply flawed" documentation.
I really wonder about that. I had difficulty getting a job after college, and like a lot of others my student loan went into collection. Two years after graduation, in another state, I landed a well paying job, contacted the collection agency through an old notice and made payments, eventually paying it off.
And then, about a year later, I got contacted by a collection agency (the same or a different, I don't know -- didn't keep track) that I still owed $500-something on my student loan. I was doing well at the time, so I paid it off again just to make it all go away.
Three years later, I moved to a different state and got a new job, and a collection agency *again* contacted me about my student loan, saying I still owed a little over $200. I argued vehemently that I had already paid off the damn thing twice. They got really rude over the next few weeks, called work and home at all hours, and being nasty to whomever answered. I swallowed my pride and paid it off for a third time.
That was a couple decades ago, and I haven't gotten any calls since. But here's the punchline. My most recent job required that I provide evidence of my degree. I'd never been asked this before, and looking through all my decades-old paperwork, some never opened through moves from one state to another to another, I couldn't find my diploma.
No problem, right? Contact the school, get a copy of the diploma, send it to HR.
The school had no record that I had ever attended.
Let that sink in for a moment.
So I went backwards from the student loan docs, which showed that I attended the school from year1 to year2. The school eventually had to admit that I had been a student there, but they had lost all records of that time. I got them to put that in a letter, which my work grudgingly accepted. Next time I'm not putting my education on my resume.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I don't disagree. But I'd bet that's the rare exception to the rule.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Sure, those who provided loans should have tracked things better, but that doesn't eliminate the ethical responsibility borrowers have to pay back what they agreed.
True but one issue brought up is that the lenders can't prove what the borrowers loaned so it would be impossible for them to pay back. In one case mentioned, a woman disputes some of the loans in question because she claims that she never went to a college that the lender says she did. She doesn't dispute the other loans. However, then the judge had to ask the lender to prove what she owed. And they can't.
The end result will only be to raise the cost of loans for future borrowers.
How will the cost of loans be raised for future borrowers? Interest rates are what determines the cost. And the fact of the matter is that the lenders by law have to follow certain guidelines.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Corporate responsibility is to screw personal responsibility. In a country that is supposedly as great as ours, all education should be free. One year of our military budget could end hunger, poverty, medical care, the educational crises in this country. Five years, on this planet, nah. Remove the financial burden from a people, and see what inspiration could really accomplish.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Its the best thing ill Gotten Gain could be spent on. :)
[($)]
The issue is apparently validating the chain of custody of the loans if I understand correctly. This might have a big impact on loan securitization, which I have mixed feelings about. Long term it will make access to credit much more restricted, likely driving up costs. These loans have more than the principal in finance charges though, so I guess they expected to write off half of them.
Student loans need better regulation before we have the equivalent of the mortgage meltdown for education loans.
The mortgage bubble nearly threw us into Great Depression 2.0. (Yes, I do credit Obama for saving us. GOP's "recovery" plan was too close to Hoover's for comfort.)
Table-ized A.I.
You do understand that if the lender can't tell you (and document) what you owe, how can you pay it back?
Bank: "This person owes $10,000 dollars your honor"
Borrower: "No I don't. I only owe $5,000"
Judge: "Where is the promissory note for any amounts"
Bank: "We don't have any."
Judge: "How are you going to make the defendant pay any amount of a loan for which you have no documentation? How do I know that the borrower owes you the money?"
Sorry, you don't get out of the loan just because you didn't get a decent education.
And where is this coming from? Freudian slip?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
cap student loans / income based pay back with say an max interest rate of 2-3% and max pay back time 20 years. And you are under X income then you pay 0.
or just have cheaper 11 or 7 come back for them as how meany banks would give someone 150K to get that PHD in medieval studies?
"You do understand that if the lender can't tell you (and document) what you owe, how can you pay it back?"
Account for yourself, assuming you learned basic math with your education.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
This sounds like a bunch of creditors that cannot show that the debtors owe those particular creditors those particular obligations. Ergo, the obligations cannot be assumed to be legitimate.
The borrower may owe someone, but they don't necessarily owe the plaintiff. If the original creditor isn't interested in collecting on the debt (because they've already sold it off) or helping the successor creditor fix their colossal screw-up, that's not on the debtor.
Ah, you're confusing legality and ethics. Legality relates to obligations specified by law and enforced by courts. Ethics relates to "feels," the dictates of invisible men in the sky, and anything that you can throw at a wall that advantages you at the time.
For example, ethics would say that private loans that were dischargeable in bankrputcy prior to 1998 should have remained so, and not been converted into non-dischargeable obligations by an after-the-fact change in the law. That was the bargain struck when the loans were made, right? Or is yours merely a creditor's ethics, where any discharge of a debt is the failing of a weak society rather than a penalty for creditors who fail to ensure that a debtor was credit worthy and/or a manifestation of the risk side of the risk/reward equation?
Proof required. Show me a substitute investment that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy, has an equivalent rate of return, and is virtually unregulated.
The end result will be a bunch of beneficiaries will sue a bunch of trustees responsbile for administrating the loan trusts for being incompetent idiots, and future, somewhat more competent trusts will arise to accept capital that is desperate for anyplace to go that is paying better than T-bill rates of return (2-3%).
the NBA and NFL need minor leagues so that we can cut the joke classes that student athletes take (when the team needs 40-60 hours you don't time for class)
At the same time, odds are at least some are being hit up for more than they owe, perhaps being double billed. There may even be some that actually don't owe any money. We can't tell how many because the paperwork is too screwed up to show that the loans even exist.
Since these loans were bought, it is safe to say that none of the debtors agreed to owe the current holder of the loan.
It's more interesting to pull back a level. There we see a financial industry so high on itself that it figured it didn't NEED proof of anything. Just point and say "He owes me money" and the courts would oblige. Sadly, they weren't wrong at the time. But after screwing around for 10 years soiling their own reputation at every turn, it is no longer true. Now judges want to see proof (like they should have all along).
Account for yourself
By your logic, anyone can claim that you owe them money and not have to provide any evidence. I owe student loans but not to XYZ Corp. According to you I should just pay them. Wait, ABC Corp says I owe them the money, should I pay them too. The bare minimum these companies had to do was to keep up with paperwork. Why do you make them also equally accountable? Or are you just beholden to a corporation?
, assuming you learned basic math with your education.
I learned basic math but I seem to be more versed in the law than you. You have to prove what you say in court. If you can't then the court doesn't have to believe you.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Actually, 'securitization' and resale(often multiple layers) of debt has been a very, very, popular trend; and at least in property mortgages, led to quite a few situations where nobody seemed to have any idea(much less be willing to tell the borrower) who was actually supposed to be getting paid; had a claim to the collateral in the event of a default, etc.
Making a loan and then keeping it on your books for the duration of its repayment period is increasingly quaint. That's one of the reasons why the time-saving "just make it up" method of bookkeeping became popular. Standards of documentation designed under the assumption that creditors would retain loans became cumbersome when they were chopping them up and reselling them; so they decided to adopt more convenient standards.
I think all education should be free but that is not the point here.
These people took out private loans for education. The people writing these loans were somewhat shady and they bundled the loans and sold them to investors looking to make a quick buck. They have been aggressive in collecting the loans and fees but the problem is that they don't have proper documentation that they actually own the loan.
If I had a loan that was serviced by these jerks, I'd default and when they came after me just ask them to "show me your papers". It doesn't sound like they have any of the papers so all of these people could get out of their debt.
Those on the right are always touting the importance of following the letter of the law. Now it's time to make the lenders follow the letter of the law... no paper, no payments.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Silly communist. "Personal responsibility" means paying whatever your betters say you owe. Malfeasance doesn't exist; and alleged 'mistakes' are fake news.
Missing documentation can be explained in many ways.... but fake? WTF?
This sounds like a bunch of debtors who've found a loophole ...
No, it sounds just like what's in TFS:
... because documents proving who owns the loans are missing.
You don't keep track of who owns your loans.
You can't get hold of that spaghetti shit.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
If you're too stupid to keep track of the money you've paid out then you deserve to lose it.
These lenders are relying on intimidation and bullying to get paid when they don't have their paperwork.
So sorry, follow the letter of the law, sucker.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Might be quaint, but some banks do still do this on home mortgages and it can be a factor in whom you take out a loan with.
My first mortgage in 2004 was with the bank that originated it / they never sold their portfolio for servicing. I never had reason to seek exception or talk to a loan officer, but the option was there.
The subsequent refinance to a lower rate and shorter term was sold/packaged and servicer replaced before the first payment was due.
You were being responsible and your credit rating will show that. You do benefit.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
"I'd bet that's the rare exception"
In 2013, 59% of all mortgages were sold to third parties. See Chart 2: http://bipartisanpolicy.org/wp...
If you accept that the world is not black and white, and that some obligations are more legitimate than others, then many of these obligations may be in that grey zone approaching predatory, unconscionable, and even illegitimate.
Certainly some debtors in this pool knew exactly what they were getting into, and received good and valuable education as a result of taking on this debt, but there is a big piece of that industry that pushes people into debt they have little or no realistic chance of repaying by the terms of the loan, knowing they will profit on the whole from those who try to make good, pay more than they borrowed, but drown under interest, fees, etc.
The issue is that the holder of the loans have been passing it around like crabs in a frat house and no one knows whose faul... errr owns the loans.
Chances are the borrowers weren't informed at every step, and even if they did communication claiming to own a loan and to pay someone else now is a classic scam.
Their investors' failure to keep proper documentation is a reflection of their business plan - buy debt and then service it as cheaply as you can get away with. As few people as possibly manning the phones, no allowances for people who can't pay - just pay collectors to harass debtors until they choose paying the loan over food and shelter. The collection agencies that break the law get the best results...
They finally cheaped out to the point where they can't even prove they own the debt anymore. That's how the system works - if lenders do their due diligence before and after they lend the money, then lenders can make a tidy profit in exchange for lending their cash to those who can borrow responsibly. If they try to cheap out then they'll make loans to irresponsible borrowers while wrecking lives through extraordinarily strict collections until finally the lender screws up and loses it all.
I've never had any trouble paying my debts, but any idiot can see the student loan system is broken.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
You sound like a real cunt.
Once again, being a responsible adult who pays their bills leaves you fucked.
I think I'm doing this adulting thing wrong.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
for decades. Yeah, bad or unfinished degrees from people who's lives are a mess. A lot of them not all there in the head (I had a rough upbringing, so I know a lot of flakes). I can't get too worked up by this. The college graduates that make it more than pay for the ones that don't. And the folks whining about paying are the ones benefiting from their labor.
I'm pretty sure the majority of people reading this would like to see free college. The question is when are we gonna put our votes where our mouths are?
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the mortgage thing was a problem because the banks loaned more than the houses were worth and thus could not get their money back. Short of dying or dropping off the grid you're gonna pay those loans. Hell, if you live in the south they've got debtor's prisons for you.
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Are you implying that it is (also) the borrower's responsibility to track sale and re-sale of the debt from corp A to corp B to corp C, and verify correct paperwork each time?
Yes, there's a moral obligation to pay your debts, but if the contract between borrower and lender can't be proven, then there's nothing to enforce.
If the borrower didn't enter the contract intending to find a loophole to skip repayment, but there's a failure on the other side to perform due diligence, then the lender can't really complain about having to write off the debt. It's the lender's problem, not the borrower's. Perhaps next time they purchase a debt from a bank/whatever, they'll remember to not cut corners and not do it on the cheap.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
"In a country that is supposedly as great as ours, all education should be free."
Public education is free in the USA. It is also worthless.
Public schools in places like DC and Chicago give high school diplomas to those that cannot even read at an 8th grade level.
I'm sorry but the facts are facts. If you want an education then you have to pay for it.
To public schools students are just boxes on a conveyor belt. They get paid based on how many boxes reach the end. They don't care if the boxes are full of knowledge, full of misinformation, or just plain empty, they still get paid the same regardless.
Parents can complain but since they aren't paying the salaries the teachers are not accountable to them. In many cases the parents can't even "fire" the teachers by moving their children to another school because the government decided the only schools allowed are the public schools. Parents can't even home school because if you aren't sending your children to a "school" (as defined by the government) then you are obviously allowing your children to live in ignorance and therefore the children must be taken from you. For their own good of course.
"Remove the financial burden from a people, and see what inspiration could really accomplish."
You are correct. If freed from the tax burden of these failed schools then I can only imagine what we could accomplish.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
It's the responsibility of both. I'm a fiscal conservative and all for personal responsibility, but I have no sympathy for the lenders here. These were private loans. It was the personal responsibility of the lender to make sure the paperwork was in order and properly recorded before they loaned out the money (or paid to acquire the loan). If they fail to do that, well I guess their money wasn't really important to them in the first place.
Congrats to the borrowers - they got the equivalent to finding thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on the ground because the lender wasn't careful to make sure their pocket didn't have a hole in it.
Yes, the ethical thing for the borrower to do is to pay back the loan. But if there's no clear documentation for the loan, the borrower can't be sure they're paying back the right person. They could pay someone $10,000, then next day some other collector calls saying they're the actual owner of the loan and the borrower needs to come up with another $10,000 to pay them. Faced with this possibility, the most ethical thing a borrower can do is "pay back" the loan by putting it into a savings account. And when someone can prove that they're really the actual one who is owed the money, the borrower can transfer the account over to them (minus interest).
who've found a loophole
Well, I say you owe me $300,000.00 for your student loan. So pay up!
Remember, you can't discharge your debt to me in bankruptcy, and if you fail to pay me back at the 13%+ interest rate (which the government loaned me at 1%), then the government will pay me back 100% + 13% interest and my court costs and whatever legal fees I care to claim!
Of course, you could always move to Scotland, where university is free for the asking. Or many other nations that do much the same. And remember, every single US state has a state funded university. You pay taxes for people to learn there. So why are the tuitions sky high? Last time I went to UT, the cost was pretty damn large, and the universities in Texas are funded by oil wells on state land. Well, they used to be before (political party redacted, do your own research) raided the funds for the general purse.
I agree, just and legal debts should be binding, however, it's incumbent on the creditor to properly document and produce the contracts. In a sense, these debtors are saying "I don't owe you the money", and the "creditors" are saying "Trust me. You do." without offering the required proof. In that sense, it's not a loophole, it's simple justice. If I can't come to court and prove you owe me $300,000.00, then I should not be able to force you to pay me. Yet the law around student loans makes this inescapable (and credit card debt too, to a lesser extent.) One of my family had one of these companies try to dun them for a debt for going to school on a loan. Fortunately, they had proof they were out of the country during the time they said my family member was attending school.
If you've heard the phrase "short end of the stick" then you may find this link helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Also, I've make a bit of coin by buying people's credit card debit. You bet the check that I ensure I have complete documentation, and that I get a contract that puts me first in collecting it, and that they can't open new credit accounts without my approval. But whereas they were paying the credit card companies 22.9% interest, I'm only asking 5%. I don't buy just anyone's debt, I have to know them personally for at least 2 years. And I work with them if needed to help them detect the scams, come ons, bait and switch, and corrupt loans and things.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
This sounds like a bunch of debtors who've found a loophole to get out of their legitimate obligations. Sure, those who provided loans should have tracked things better, but that doesn't eliminate the ethical responsibility borrowers have to pay back what they agreed. The end result will only be to raise the cost of loans for future borrowers.
Ethical responsibility? I agree there's a lack of ethical responsibility. It's on the part of the colleges and the loan companies that together have pushed college inflation at unfair and unjustified levels. If you're being beaten down by an unjust system over which you have no control, do you have an "ethical responsibility" to bow down to accept it? No, NEVER. You just survive as best you can, and if you play along with it then you do so only out of pragmatism. Signing the loan document -- "agreeing" in your words -- brings no more ethical obligations than signing a forced confession in which you agree that you committed crimes that you never did.
well I think that's the problem. They don't have the paper.
It's also not simply people lying to get out of loans, it's courts fed up with high pressure tactics to get payment on loans that were never made! Then when they are contested the loan companies dont' show up in court. It's the courts that are invaldating the loans for their own purposes not just because people are trying to weasle out
from the article:
“I tried to be honest,” Ms. Watson said of her court appearance. “I said, ‘Some of these loans I took out, and I’ll be responsible for them, but some I didn’t take.’”
In her defense, Ms. Watson’s lawyer seized upon what he saw as the flaws in National Collegiate’s paperwork. Judge Eddie McShan of New York City’s Civil Court in the Bronx agreed and dismissed four lawsuits against Ms. Watson. The trusts “failed to establish the chain of title” on Ms. Watson’s loans, he wrote in one ruling.
When the judge’s rulings wiped out $31,000 in debt, “it was such a relief,” Ms. Watson said. “You just feel this whole weight lifted. My mom started to cry.”
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Really, the borrower has no responsibility to track the loan, it's all on the lender?
Yes, it is all on the lender.
I make an agreement with you to pay you $1000 a month until my $100,000 debt is repaid. You sell that debt to someone else. You are responsible for making sure they have all the appropriate paperwork to take over that debt. If they sell it to someone else, they are responsible. And so on and so on and so on.
If whoever ends up with it can't prove that they are the person who is supposed to be receiving my payments, that's their fault or whoever sold them the debt--not mine. I'm not just going to pay someone who walks up and says, "Hey, you owe me money!" Once someone can prove that they are the person who is supposed to be receiving my payments, I will gladly make them.
There have been a number of cases of mortgage debts being declared null and void because the bank didn't have the paperwork to prove any money was owed. So why not give it a try?
I can answer that. It's because the media conglomerates that push the narrative of personal responsibility are owned by billionaires using that narrative to lower their tax burdens and claim a larger piece of the economic pie. Do I get a gold star?
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Bingo. 'Education' is the second-biggest scam in America, after healthcare.
.... the magic words are "Show me the paperwork indicating that I owe you this debt.". Most collection agencies have ZERO paperwork showing that they are entitled to collect, but rely on intimidation to get people to comply. Fight back! Make them at least show the paperwork! Chances are, they don't have it.
Really, the borrower has no responsibility to track the loan, it's all on the lender?
Yep. Otherwise, I as the supposed lender can demand that you start repaying that 500k loan I claim that you took out and according to you, the onus is on you to prove that there never was a loan.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
...ethical responsibility to pay the loan back, but not the owner of the loan's responsibility to actually track what people owe them? Seems to me that ethically...
Debt: The First 5000 Years is a stimulating read, bringing in quite different point of views on debt, loan, responsibility, ethicality and so on. Quite radical. Arguable. Not a short read. Cut and paste from WP :
Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a book by anthropologist David Graeber published in 2011. It explores the historical relationship of debt with social institutions such as barter, marriage, friendship, slavery, law, religion, war and government; in short, much of the fabric of human life in society. It draws on the history and anthropology of a number of civilizations, large and small, from the first known records of debt from Sumer in 3500 BC until the present.
A major argument of the book is that the imprecise, informal, community-building indebtedness of "human economies" is only replaced by mathematically precise, firmly enforced debts through the introduction of violence, usually state-sponsored violence in some form of military or police.
A second major argument of the book is that, contrary to standard accounts of the history of money, debt is likely the oldest means of trade, with cash and barter transactions being later developments. Debt, the book argues, has typically retained its primacy, with cash and barter usually limited to situations of low trust involving strangers or those not considered credit-worthy.
Graeber shows how the second argument follows from the first; that, in his words, "markets are founded and usually maintained by systematic state violence," though he goes on to show how "in the absence of such violence, they (...) can even come to be seen as the very basis of freedom and autonomy."
Z.
legitimate obligations
Ha that's a laugh coming from you. You still owe me $2500. Why haven't you paid me yet. I already told you that you owe it to me. Stop trying to find a loophole out of your "legitimate obligations".
Like the "real" people who own millons in offshore accounts paying their (tax) debt? These students learned from the best, found a loophole and got away with it. End of story.
sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
Good that I find you here. We still need back the 10.350,12USD you borrowed. I assume that you use an alias and not your real name to get out of your legitimate obligations. Pay up as you have the ethical responsibility to do so.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
On the other hand you could have just set up a standing order for the payment. I am travelling so can't make a scheduled known payment is the lamest excuse I have ever heard of.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Though apparently in the third world that is the USA you have a system where the bank automatically mails a cheque to the specified payee (like WTF, really!!!!!!!!!). Either way travelling is no excuse for not making scheduled payments. For more than the last decade I have been able to go online with my bank and setup a scheduled one of payment some time in the future. Never really tried to see how far in advance you can go, but it is a couple of months at least.
Because they made an agreement! Even if we decided to make all public colleges free tomorrow it would not change the obligation of people with existing loans to pay them!
They wanted to borrow money to get something they wanted at the time and agreed to pay it back with interest. They were lent the money. They need to repay the money.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Graduated in '03. Took out both Stafford loans and private loans to pay for college. My private loans were sold once, and my Stafford loans were sold twice. Paid it all off completely, the private loans five years ago and the Stafford loans this year, but it seemed silly to me at the time how frequently my debt was being tossed around between lenders.
Personally, I'm concerned, because we've seen this before. I believe financial institutions are packaging student loan debts into asset-backed securities and selling them to the highest bidder. To the buyer, it's no longer a set of loans, but a financial instrument of cash flow. Buy a packaged set of loans for x dollars promising a cash flow of y dollars over z years. We saw the same thing happen with home loans during the 2008 recession.
I've neither said nor implied any such thing. I've just said people are ethically bound to pay their debts, and they should be just as responsible for knowing what those debts are as the lenders.
Iin the exact article one of the complaints of a borrower was that the lender was trying to make her pay for loans she claims she never made. According to her there were loans to a college she never attended. The problem with your last sentence is no, it is not the responsibility of the borrower to prove the lender's claim. It is the responsibility of the party bringing the claim in the eyes of the law to substantiate it.
Did you even read my last comment? How am I to know that XYZ Corp bought out my student loan. I wasn't there for the sale. I didn't see the negotiation or the transaction. How do I know ABC Corp who is also asking me for the money didn't actually buy it? I don't. There are a lot of scammers out there. Considering that the lender in the article has already been accused of trying to levy bogus loans, there is a reasonable question as to where the lender owns the debt. They have to prove it in court.
Law has nothing to do with it.
Considering that the article has to do with debts, contracts, ownership, and lawsuits, I can't see how you can say that.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It takes two to tango. Maybe the company shouldn't have signed a contract it didn't understand required it to keep records of who owed how much to whom.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Er what insurance premiums? How can lenders making bad loans or keeping bad paperwork raise insurance rates in anyway. Especially for student loans.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It's interesting that it has become imperative for individuals to "live up to a contract", yet corporations face no such burden.
If I declare bankruptcy, I'm punished for 10 years via a bad credit report.
A corporation declares bankruptcy and it has virtually no effect. Heck, just transfer all the assets to another corporation and dissolve the original corporation. Ta-da! Freedom from contractual obligations and you are celebrated as a financial genius.
the parents can't even "fire" the teachers by moving their children to another school because the government decided the only schools allowed are the public schools.
Citation required.
Parents can't even home school because if you aren't sending your children to a "school"
Citation required.
I'm sorry but the facts are facts. If you want an education then you have to pay for it.
Ditto. If you want public schools that provide an education, then you have to pay for it. So the next time someone tells you "it's the teacher's fault!!!!", ask them why we pay teachers so little (thus getting reducing teacher quality), and why they keep insisting on further cuts to education budgets.
I've often wondered how these collection agencies are capable of proving that they own the debt. I know that a lot of these companies buy tons of these debts for pennies on the dollar, and my understanding is that they get this information as lists of debt on spreadsheets. How is that proof? Or are they getting the actual "original" documents that were signed those decades ago? I know that when they contact you, they act all tough and want immediate payment, but getting them to "prove it" to you usually ends up in a hang up and then a repeat of the phone calls a week or so later. To be honest, I've never understood the legal boundaries on either side of this situation, other than the borrower finally giving in and "doing the right thing". Fortunately, I'm not in such a circumstance right now, but my curiosity has never been sated on this issue.
Sarbonn's blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/blog
Great. I can't tell it this really is creimer or some troll impersonating his sockpuppet account.
I don't post AC.
And yet the creditors here would cheerfully argue (and have argued) that contracts entered into in good faith aren't enforceable because they were verbal and the debtor can't show any proof they existed, when that contract consisted of the creditor's rep giving assurances to the debtor about leniency. You and they can't have it both ways. The big financial institutions have been at the forefront of advocating that if you can't produce a signed written agreement then it didn't happen and isn't legally enforceable, well the individual debtor's equally entitled to demand the same standard apply when it goes the other direction.
Baffled by Slashdot's decision.
Management neither confirm nor deny my DMCA takedown request for cdreimer. They simply deleted the account without explanation. I claimed that username when it became available again.
Why does he deserve special treatment?
I complained to management and got results. Don't like it? Stop whining in the comments and do something about it. Management may not be sympathetic to you since I'm only using cdreimer to submit stories.
Finance / banking is one of those lines of business that requires a degree of all employees for no particular reason. An MBA or other job-specific cert applies only to the higher positions; for everyone else, it's just a matter of policy that you have something.
So if you overpaid at Evergreen College for that genderqueer theory masters that by now you have found opens no employment doors, you will end up working for a bank or collection agency, shuffling that very same legacy paperwork incompetently enough to let large numbers of your fellow liberal arts slackers off the hook for their student loans.
Again, how does it lead to higher insurance premiums? A lender can charge higher interest for riskier borrowers but what does insurance have to do with it?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
How will the cost of loans be raised for future borrowers? Interest rates are what determines the cost.
Have you never had a mortgage before? Closing costs alone can total upwards of $5,000, which isn't exactly a drop in the bucket.
Did you apply for a loan using a gun?
If somebody can not show you the papers proving you owe them anything, especially if you didn't borrow anything from them, then why should you pay?
It has nothing to do with being 'legitimate' or not.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Personally my mortgage was bought and sold twice in two months right after I took it out. It was a mess trying to figure out who I should pay. One month it was this company. So I had to set them up in my bank accounts. Next month I was informed that they sold it so I had to do the same thing over again. One problem was that actually sold it within the same month but I didn't get notified until the next month. That was a little bit of stress within getting a new mortgage to figuring who to pay and that the last payment made it to the right people.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I bet, you have so many accounts to post from; you can even moderate yourself up and vote yourself up in the firehose.
I post comments from creimer, submit stories from cdreimer. I don't moderate but I do up/down vote in firehouse. The other four user accounts were set up with disposable email addresses and the login info tossed into the bit bucket.
Slashdot allows that to make sure they are politically correct and don't get sued for discrimination against a copyright holder.
FTFY
There you go!
Transfer yourself to a corporation, let that corporation borrow the money for your study, and have fun.
Can't pay back? Your corporation goes bankrupt and you just transfer yourself to another one.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
You forgot to mention that they agreed to pay the loan back to the original borrower.
That original borrower got paid for the loan by some 'benevolent' organization, and now you're free.
Later this 'benevolent' institution got remorse but can't prove you owe them anything.
End of story.
Technicality... my ass.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
because you benefit from the work they do. That's what a civilization is. We all work together. Did you build your PC out of matchsticks on your Grandfather's deathbed? Did you invent the microprocessor? No? Then bugger off with your stupid right wing think tank created talking point.
You, me and everyone reading this owe those kids an education because our success was built on the backs of the last gen and our retirement will be built on the backs of the next gen. That's how this works. Anything else is just exploiting people for gain. You know this. Which is why you trot out trigger words like "Social Justice" instead of facing the real issues head on.
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Bullshit.
The borrower owned the original loaner money, who was made whole for the same by a benevolent somebody else who freed you from your debt.
I would say: "Thank You!"
The real problem is that people need to get in debt in order to get an education, with which they can earn money they need to pay their taxes with, which will be collected by the bankster criminals that own the 'Federal' 'Reserve' 'Bank' (three lies in quotes) which borrowed all banknotes and digital money in circulation to the government.
It's the Federal Government that should have printed the money that paid for the free education which then would have elevated the country.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Of course, but to whom?
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Would you like to be the one that found out he's the exception, and now has to pay back his loan twice?
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
eah, this is one of the more baffling aspects of modern American culture, especially on the right. They distrust every single thing about the government, but are happy to believe every single thing out of the mouths of large corporations and throw all their trust behind them.
Depends on which American you are talking to. If it's someone on the political left they tend to believe the government and not the companies. Political right is the reverse. Many exceptions of course on both sides of the aisle. Americans often like simple sound bite ideology that doesn't require them to think too hard especially when there is a chance they are wrong.
What makes this even less understandable is that one of those entities has a clear motive for lying to you quite a lot of the time, and the other doesn't... and many people will still put their trust behind the party that has clear motive to be dishonest every time.
That's because they tend to put their faith in whichever party best services their pre-existing confirmation bias. Whether what the party says is true or logical or sensible seems to play little role in their decision making. If they think government = evil then they will probably vote reliably republican even if that actually goes against their own self interest. Basically about 40% of the population will vote democrat no matter what and 40% will vote republican no matter what. It's not logical but that's what happens.
You can't copyright a name. Go claim your "copyright" from GitHub, you fat fraud.
https://github.com/creimer
I don't publish content under my legal name because my legal name isn't unique.
As a content creator, you must protect your copyright or risk losing it, remember?
Yes, C.D. Reimer. Not creimer of Germany, not creimer of Women.
Have you never had a mortgage before? Closing costs alone can total upwards of $5,000, which isn't exactly a drop in the bucket.
Yes I have a mortgage. Lenders can't just tack on closing costs without telling you what they are. Also you can negotiate the costs. The seller and I split the cost. The seller didn't raise the price.
Mortgage closing costs
When you are buying a home you generally pay all of the costs associated with that transaction. However, depending on the contract or State law, the seller may end up paying for some of these costs. . .
Again how was the loan cost raised up because of bad purchases the lender made? A lender in question normally assesses each loan based on the particular case. In this story particularly, the supposed current owner of the debt wasn't the original lender but someone who later bought the debt. Some of these companies never made a loan themselves; they buy them as investments. How can they enforce higher costs on those that they bought the loans from?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
What do you think?
In the financial business gains are privatized and losses are socialized.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
2007 - You borrow $31k to go to school. You don't pay income taxes on it because you didn't make the money, you borrowed it. You will pay income taxes on it when you earn the $31k that you use to pay back the loan.
2017 - Creditor cancels the debt. You no longer have to pay it back. The money you received in 2007 now becomes income (just like winning the lottery) instead of a loan, and you owe taxes on it. The IRS is actually being generous by assessing taxes on it in 2017, instead of assessing it back in 2007 when you actually received the money.
Likewise from the lenders side:
2007 - You lend $31k to someone. You already paid income taxes on it because you earned that money previously and it was sitting in your bank account.
2017 - You cancel the debt. Since the money effectively vanished from your account, you shouldn't have had to have paid taxes on it when you earned it. Consequently, the IRS allows you to take a tax deduction for the loss, thereby canceling out the taxes you paid for the money when you first made it. The tax liability for the money is instead shifted over to the person who now has the money - the borrower whose debt was forgiven.
We just went through this with missing mortgage paper work. In the case at hand the mortgage holder had zero evidence of owning the mortgage other than it was listed in their computer. In fact the mortgage may not have been owned by the claimant at all. No proof was available. But the justice system was aware that the problem was so common that the national economy could take too big a hit if outfits like Fannie Mae could not prove ownership of mortgages they claimed to own. The state courts wiggled out of the situation by denying hearing cases completely. therefore Fannie Mae owns what they claim they own. Now the question will quickly become how will banks survive if they can not collect the money they supposedly are due to collect. If all of this sounds absurd to you keep in mind one simple fact that has come to light. Some people lost their homes who never ever had a mortgage in the first place. They lost the homes by institutions making phony claims of ownership. There have even been cases of outsiders sneaking files into public records in order to cause legal hell for judges who punished them or other motives for revenge. The process for removing a false file can be long, expensive and have a dubious resolution. People deliberately take jobs in which they have access to public files such as working for a security service or cleaning service and then do their worst after hours when no one sees what goes on. Rather than using a computer it is often a matter of opening a file cabinet and inserting false documents.
C. D. are your initials, Reimer is your last name - not particularly inventive, n'est-ce pas?
My father called me Christopher Dale (think Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh, who was the author's son). C.D. is also a gender-neutral name. Since I find myself working with female editors and creating short stories with lead female characters, a gender-neutral name helps in attracting female readers.
Your ONLY legitimate claim was for violation of Slashdot's TOS.
Fake accounts created for the expressed purpose of harassing another user qualifies as a TOS violation.
Go ahead and try to sign up variations of the name "creimer". Either Slashdot took pity on this medical moron, or he actually signed up dozens of variations of cdreimer. c.d.reimer, cd.reimer, cdreimer. , .c.reimer. , etc, are all taken. They weren't just a few months ago.
I've noticed that too. I suspect management did that. After all, I did fire a DMCA takedown notice across their bow.
https://slashdot.org/~creimer/submissions
If you had reading glasses, you would notice that the last time I submitted a story under creimer was 14 months ago. I've submitted seven stories in the last month under cdreimer.
Look, the evidence is right there!
Still looking for Hillary's emails?
"I don't publish content under my legal name because my legal name isn't unique."
You literally FIVE MINUTES ago boasted that you publish content under cdreimer right here!
C.D. Reimer isn't my legal name.
How the fuck does that defective mass of useless fat inside your skull manage to figure out breathing?
How does your neck handle the hundred of Gs from the constant flip-flopping? You change your story more often than Mitt Romney during a debate!
I'm not the one arguing a non-existent argument.
One thing I do admire about you, is your immense self-confidence.
I stopped believing what my naysayers said me about years ago.
I'm a thousand times the man you are, yet I don't have even a shred of your chutzpah. I guess humility is another of those words you have no idea what to do with.
If you had humility, you wouldn't be bragging about being a bigger prick than me.
They're all "for-profit schools".
You have NO copyrights on the name "C. D. Reimer," or "cdreimer."
I have copyrights in the name of C.D. Reimer. When someone creates an account in my name (or a variation thereof), has the home page link set to my website, and post as if I was posting the comment, I took immediate action to protect my copyrights.
You got fag picks and bad worker pick of you with your personal info all over the internet and in comments here.
The majority of those links are broken. Unless your last name is Trump, no one cares about Russian image websites.
BTW, I'll be making a YouTube video on how to take down images from Russian websites using Google Chrome "translate to English" feature.
When Tanya and I started paying back student loans, the *FIRST* thing we did was write each creditor and ask them for the loan documentation, and we specifically asked they show us the original agreement and copy of the signature. We also asked for documentation proving they now own the debt and that when we pay it off it will be done done.
If you don't do this, you run a damned good chance of having to pay the loan more than once.
Pretty much all of them were able to schlep up copies of paper signed years ago, along with who bought what debt from whom all the way down to the current owner. This tells me that they know they don't get paid if they screw this up.
Only one or two couldn't produce; we told them "well, if you come up with the docs, contact us; otherwise, sorry--we don't know you!".
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I didn't like that there was a troll using a variant of my name on Slashdot, calling me names and making me feel stupid.
ROFL
[...] you got your fat face on a bunch of dick picks on the internet and here [...]
Soon to become a YouTube video as I explain how to take down dick pics from Russian image websites using Google Chrome's "translate to English" feature.
You didn't even get the last account that was in your name. It only had two comments.
That account doesn't exist. Otherwise, post the name of the account.
"Ditto. If you want public schools that provide an education, then you have to pay for it."
Yet actual reality shows that the more money thrown at US public schools, the worse the results have become.
Government is the only area where you're rewarded with more money for doing a worse job.
Can some black hat please please DDOS all sites affiliated with this trolll?
You must be very desperate to have my websites and YouTube account targeted for DDOS.
Sometimes hosting providers like dreamhost suspend accounts when they become too problematic, it occurred before.
My web hosting account has been holding up quite well from the extra gigabytes of Slashdot traffic.
What are you laughing about - did you find a piece of candy in your pocket?
That you think that three months of dog piling my comments, creating fake accounts and posting dick picks had taken a toll on me on emotionally. That's funny. Only 14-year-old wankers think their actions has any affect on the world. As one of my friends told me after reading the comments, "These people need to get a life."
The ONLY reason you got the troll account closed was that you complained to management about how it was a violation of the TOS.
Management never explained why they deleted all five accounts. The first one was requested under DMCA, and the other four I pointed out with the expectation that nothing would be done.
It's funny that you keep trying to pass this off as simply a "copyright" action that you took as a business decision, though.
I filed many DMCA takedown notices in the last 10 years. Slashdot wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Once I had the contact info for the Russian image websites in a spreadsheet, it took only five minutes to copy, paste and send each one off.
You have an ethical responsibility to provide for corporate profit, even when they don't follow the laws that govern their industry?
Learn to love Alaska
You're looking to escape responsibility for your actions and are part of the real problem.
Corporations avoid as much tax as possible. They don't follow the laws as intended, but as written. Anyone dealing with the corporations would be unethical to treat them otherwise.
The only ethical choice is to screw the corporation.
Learn to love Alaska
I've lived it. I had a written agreement with a company discharging my debt, as they failed to deliver and wanted to avoid court. The company I had that discharge of debt with folded. I discarded my written agreement after 7 years. 10 years after the "debt" that never existed, I had a collections company contact me, demanding payment. It showed up on my credit report as a current debt in default.
That's not the exception to the rule. That is the rule. The company was sold. They then bulk-sold every debt ever, without care or diligence. It was illegal. It took me a long time to clear it up. That's SOP for corporations.
That you assume benevolence and fair play on the part of corporation is simply insane. Anyone dealing with them should treat them in the manner they treat others. By the letter of the law, exploiting the law as much as possible.
Learn to love Alaska
I've just said people are ethically bound to pay their debts,
While the corporations claim they are ethically bound to not pay their debts (tax avoidance), I'd argue that you are ethically bound to hold the corporations to the law, even if that impairs their profits.
Learn to love Alaska
So, the public schools are bad, and your solution is to make everyone pay for education, rather than fix the system? I bet fixing it wouldn't even be all that hard, for someone who wasn't afraid to pay teachers what they're really worth. Once upon a time, teaching was considered to be a highly respected profession, and was renumerated accordingly.
Free, public education is a cornerstone of civilisation. Take it away, and replace it with private schooling for everyone, and see what suddenly only the rich can accomplish.
Yes you did actually, and no, you did not *only* say or even intimate that people are ethically responsible for paying debt.
You simply attempted to shove the book keeping aspect from the lender, who should be all rights have to be kept to much stricter standards, to the borrower. Being as you can't prove a negative - I.E. Some random lender claims someone borrowed $X, that person doesn't have to prove they didn't borrow the money, the lender has to prove that the person did in fact borrow the money.
This is all beside the fact that unless the transfer of the debt was in the original contract the borrower should not be ethically bound to repay the second party that the debt was sold to. In the case of no selling clause being in the contract the borrower only has the ethical obligation to give money to the original lender, and the original lender only has the obligation to take the money from the borrower if they still hold if the original loan.
You want to sell in the case of no "we can sell to anyone, anytime" clauses? Make sure that I agree to have the debt moved to a different agency, one that will have to give me better terms for accepting the move. Otherwise I have no ethical obligation to give the new lender any payment as they are not the ones contracted to me originally. I also do not have any ethical obligations to keep paying the original lender since the can't ethically accept the payment anymore due to not holding the loan.
We, as a people in america, generally laud corporations for finding and exploiting every loophole possible to make as much profit as possible ( go capitalism rah rah rah ). We should also shower individuals with the same respect when they can do the same thing, whether intentionally or not, and boo the corporations for not protecting themselves and doing due diligence - thus losing money.
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
So, the public schools are bad, and your solution is to make everyone pay for education, rather than fix the system?
They are paying for their children's education, it's just hidden in their sales taxes and such. The problem is that the schools do not answer to the parents, they answer to the school board.
I bet fixing it wouldn't even be all that hard, for someone who wasn't afraid to pay teachers what they're really worth.
They get paid based on pleasing the government, not on pleasing the students or the parents. Paying them more won't fix that.
Once upon a time, teaching was considered to be a highly respected profession, and was renumerated accordingly.
What changed since then? I'll give you a hint, it's two words, it ends with "schools", and starts with "public".
Free, public education is a cornerstone of civilisation. Take it away, and replace it with private schooling for everyone, and see what suddenly only the rich can accomplish.
I've read history and my skin crawls at the abuse public schools have done to children in the past. In Depression era public schools German students were given math problems on how many able bodied workers it took to support the weak minded workers. This isn't an education, this is indoctrination. They were preparing these children for what was to come. I learned this in a Western Civilization class and in a later lesson the professor thought it was so great on how British children were provided free public education after the war. I asked him what kept British schools from repeating the "lessons" taught in the pre-war German schools. He didn't have an answer.
This is not a system that can be "fixed" because it is broken by its very nature. Public schools teach children and parents that the center of society rests with the government. It should not and cannot. The center of society should be the family.
My guess is that you are the product of public education, and you have learned your lessons well.
You think that only the rich would be able to educate their children? Books are cheap, people give them away, as are paper and pencils. Physics, chemistry, and art classes might need some materials but get creative, ask for donations, search through the junkyard. Children don't need the latest electronic gadgets to learn, they need teachers that give a damn. If all they are looking for is a bigger check from the government then that is the wrong person to have as a teacher.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
And similarly, the people they borrowed money from have a duty, when transferring that debt, to make sure that the claims on that debt are free and clear. If I show up at your house with a handwritten note that says 'bob said you sold him your car and he sold it to me,' that's about as meaningful as XYZ collection agency calling up and saying 'you owe us money.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
And you should still absolutely verify everything.
When your electric company sends you a bill, you still, or should, check that the usage looks right, that you aren't being overcharged, and so on; you don't, or shouldn't, simply blindly write a cheque for the amount printed on the bill and mail it in.
Similarly, when your mortgage company sends you your regular remittance slip, it's on you to double-check it. When they send you your annual summary, it's on you to check it. And if something looks wrong, it's on them to demonstrate that it's correct.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Due to bloom.bg/1O04ymn
Casteism
"A corporation declares bankruptcy and it has virtually no effect. "
Please confirm you have no higher education. If you do, then I hope you didn't take out a loan to learn this.
Murphy was an optimist
No, no, no that's not how the system works! The government forces you to loan money to people who can't pay it back, and when you get out from under it by selling it to some sucker, you get called a racist, or worse. Gee, where have you been the last twenty years? Oh, and I forgot, it's never the government's fault, not ever.
Murphy was an optimist