Question:
Dear Steve,
My daughter needed a small loan with a cosigner for tuition. My husband cosigned for her. She also had another small loan the next semester to which she took out without anyone cosigning.
Sallie Mae defaulted on the the loan that was only on her name. Claiming they had sent mailings to her in regards to the loan but she never received anything.
Later finally admitting that they were sending her notices to the school that she moved from. But all her mail was forwarded to our home address and we never received anything.
She was just graduating from college at the time. She was still to be under deferment but I was making payments for her to keep the interest from creeping up on her.
Now she is noticing that they are charging her interest a few times a month. She has called questioning things and no one will give her any explanation or assistance.
She has requested copies of her statements as the website will only allow her to print a year past. They have not sent her anything. Help.
Who can we contact for help? Please Help.
Belinda
Answer:
Dear Belinda,
All right, here we go, rapid-fire.
If your husband was a cosigner then he is responsible if your daughter defaults. The cosigner is 100 percent liable for the loan if the person fails to make payments. It will impact his credit report.
I think these may be private student loans since if it was a federal student loan there is no cosigner.
Statements are a notice but the borrower or debtor is still obligated to make the agreed-upon payments. If she was not getting the statements, she should have hunted them down. Not getting statements is certainly annoying but in no way does it eliminate the obligation to comply with the financial agreement.
The fact there are multiple interest charges is most likely because there are multiple private loans on one statement. Another reason would be if a variable interest rate was adjusting multiple times in a month. That is unlikely.
What you need most is information. You should be able to call Sallie Mae customer service to get a better understanding of the multiple interest charges and if those are for more than one loan on the account.
The loan your daughter defaulted on has probably charged additional fees, penalties, and is still building up interest.
You will need to contact Sallie Mae and find out if these are private or federal student loans. Please update me in the comments below.
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Answered.