This website is a testimony to the problems Canadian Student Loan borrowers experienced from approximately 1996 to 2008 and until their loans were paid off.

The privatization of the Student Loans system by the Chretien and Martin Liberal governments broke the system and defaulted thousands of borrowers who were trying to pay their loans. There were even stories of suicide due to the harassment of borrowers.

Read the report that I prepared back in 2007 here. Canada Student Loans-The Need for Change Fortunately the new Conservative government at the time revamped the program and fixed the system for new borrowers, but borrowers under the previous program were left with ruined credit and continued harassment from debt collectors.

I call on the Canadian Government to apologize to the borrowers affected by this fiasco and make amends.

Unfortunately the Liberal government is again clobbering the Education system with their upcoming changes to International Student Visas. Yes, there's a problem, but instead of a well thought out plan, they have pulled the emergency brake on the train causing a derailment. This has introduced unprecedented instability for both private and public education institutions who serve both international and local students.

Universities can't plan. I've heard of courses being cut because the government has no process in place for universities to send the newly required acceptance letters to the government.

This means that students who have been accepted can not attend courses that start in the summer 2024 semester. With cut sections, current Canadian students will have trouble getting courses, and may have to switch to part-time which changes their enrollment status and might trigger repayment of their loans or ineligibility for funding. I've seen this before. It wreaks havoc on the student loan borrowers.

Again, the Liberal government has messed up the education environment. Will the new system needed in a rush for the acceptance letters be the new Arrivecan scandal?

I call on the government to implement a slower phased in approach and delay the requirement of the acceptance letters until a process is in place to submit these letters.


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Berengiere View Drop Down
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    Posted: 14/December/2005 at 3:17am
I just want to say a great big thanks to John at CFW for all his help with my student loan problems. He is such a wonderful and caring guy.  He took the time to help calm my fears, explain to me what was going on, and what he could do to help me.  And help me he did.

Here's my story.  Maybe someone else reading it can see that *anyone* can be helped, even if you no longer living in Canada.

I went to community college (and got the student loans in Ontario) and graduated in December 1995. I filed for deferrals for paying back the student loans because I was starting up a new business immediately after graduating and didn't have the money to make the rather large payments they wanted. 
 
When Scotiabank moved their student loans to a single, centralized location, they lost my paperwork. I spent the next two years being bounced back and forth between Scotiabank and other agencies, trying to find out what I was supposed to do. 
 
In early 1999, I moved to the US and got married. In July 1999, I was contacted by credit agencies about the Canada and Ontario student loans, and my husband and I paid those off. 
 
In April of 2005, I got a phone call from someone claiming to be calling on behalf of Scotiabank, saying I still owed money, with some story about the unsecured portion of the student loans. The amount he claimed I owe was less than $5000, if you include the "fees and interest". 
 
Of course, I'd never heard anything about an "unsecured portion" of  the student loans.

A couple days later,   the guy called again April 19 and said, when I mentioned the Fair Collections Act (because my husband wants him to supply proof that I do, indeed, owe the money), that it doesn't apply to him because it's a Canadian debt, despite the fact I'm a legal US resident (got my green card and everything). 
 
(And just so everyone reading knows, this is a bunch of hooey.  The Patriot Act and banking regulations and agreements signed between Canada and the US require them to follow the laws of the place where the person they're trying to collect from resides.  So if they tell you they don't have to follows the laws of the nation where you reside, they're lying.)

Then, after that phone call where I said we wanted to see proof I owed the money, I received another another phone call - on a Saturday morning no less - from a man who shall not be named in this post. He was very confrontational and verbally abusive, accusing me of lying about not receiving a letter from them. He implied that he did not have to provide me with any proof that I owed them the money, said it was a Canadian debt and did not have to follow the laws of the US when trying to collect the money. And then, when I told him it was on a lawyer's advice that all further communcations be in writing, he accused me of trying to take the easy way out, and then got even more verbally abusive. 
 
He asked me if I acknowledge I owed the money. I said no. He then asked my if I was denying I got a student loan. I said no, I'm not denying I got a student loan, I am denying I owed the Bank of Nova Scotia money because I paid off the creditors who came after me before about the federal and provincial portions of my loan. I told him I was never told the loans would be split into three parts when the Bank of Nova Scotia put my loan into default by losing my paperwork. When he asked me what paperwork, I took a deep breath to control my temper and said that this was annoying. At was at that point where he started becoming abusive. I then hung up because he was yelling at the top of his lungs at me and I didn't want to deal with it if he was like that. Moments later, there was another phone call from an Ontario phone number (Toronto area code). We didn't answer the phone, so I have no idea who was calling but I suspect it was that guy and he wanted to yell at me some more.
 
Also, at no time have they ever told me what company they were calling from, and my attempts to find out who they were by doing a reverse look-up online have failed. 
 
Previous to this, we've been getting daily calls from an "out of area" phone number (according to our caller id), most of which have either been dead air or a hang up until this morning.

After that abusive phone call, I contacted CFW.  Within a matter of hours, I received an email back from John, saying he'd be willing to help us.

And he did.

Once I hired him, the phone calls stopped.  I received only one letter from CBCL in July, but that was the extent of them harassing me.

With the documentation John was able to get, he proved my loan was statues barred, and did it within the six months of our original agreement.  And not only that, he's providing me with a letter to use should the bank or the collection agency contact me again.  If the bank or their agencies start calling me again, I can call him again for help.

If the banks and the collection agencies are coming after you for old loans, even if you're no longer living in Canada, follow my advice and contact CFW.  I can't say enough good things about John.  He was able to take all the worry and stress from the situation away from me, and use his vast experience to help.

Thank you, John!
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