Question: Dear Steve, This is a case from 1982. ECMC claims that I owe a debt for a student loan. The problem is, I never took out or sign for the loan. ECMC hired a second debt collector, Premier Credit. I took Premiere Credit to court, proving that I was not the person who signed …
In Goodvin v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, Judge Dale Somers, a Kansas bankruptcy judge, began his opinion with these words: “This student loan case fits the definition of insanity.” Judge Somers went on to chronicle the story of Jeffrey Goodvin. Mr. Goodvin attended Wichita State University for four years (1982-1986) but did not obtain a …
Laurina Kim Bukovics enrolled as a freshman at the University of Wisconsin in 1985 and graduated five years later. She took out about $20,000 in student loans to finance her studies. Over the years, she paid back $29,000–almost 140 percent of the amount borrowed. Nevertheless, 25 years after she graduated, Bukovics owed $80,000 on her …
Vicky Jo Metz borrowed $16,613 back in the 1990s to attend a community college, but she never got a degree. Over the years, she filed for bankruptcy three times, but she continued making payments on her student loans under court-approved repayment plans. In fact, she paid almost 90 percent of what she originally borrowed. Nevertheless, …
Sue Reagan is 60-years old and lives in a mobile home on rented land. She has a part-time job but lives near or below the poverty line. She took out student loans to obtain a bachelor’s degree in administration of justice and a master’s degree in criminology, but that was long ago. Unable to pay …
Educational Credit Management Corporation [ECMC] is the Department of Education’s premier student-loan debt collector. ECMC has appeared in literally hundreds of student-loan bankruptcy cases, and it knows all the legal tricks for defeating a student-loan borrower’s efforts to discharge student loans in bankruptcy. And most of the time ECMC wins its cases. But not always. …
In 2013, Alexandra Acosta-Conniff, an Alabama school teacher and single mother of two children, filed an adversary proceeding in an Alabama bankruptcy court, hoping to discharge student loans that had grown to $112,000. She did not have an attorney, so she represented herself in court. At her trial, Judge William Sawyer applied the three-part Brunner …
Barbara Erkson, an unmarried 64-year-old woman, filed an adversary proceeding in a Maine bankruptcy court in an attempt to discharge $107,000 in student loans in bankruptcy. The U.S. Department of Education and Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) vigorously objected, but Judge Peter Carey rejected their heartless arguments and granted Ms. Erkson a full discharge. This …
In a previous essay, I wrote about Alan and Catherine Murray, a married couple in their late forties who defeated Educational Credit Management Corporation in a Kansas bankruptcy court. ECMC appealed, and the Murrays prevailed again–a victory that has important implications for middle-income student-loan debtors. The Murrays took out student loans in the 1990s to …
Back at the end of 2016 a Kansas bankruptcy judge ruled on this bankruptcy case that included federal student loan debt Educational Credit Management Corporation was responsible for. This truth is starkly illustrated in the case of Murray v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, which was decided in December 2016 by a Kansas bankruptcy judge. At …