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Paying and Paying and Paying

Printed From: CanadaStudentDebt.ca
Category: Other Topics
Forum Name: Stress & Mental Health Dealing with Student Loans
Forum Description: A place to help dealing with the stress of this crap!
URL: https://www.canadastudentdebt.ca/forum_posts.asp?TID=5470
Printed Date: 28/March/2024 at 6:16am
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Topic: Paying and Paying and Paying
Posted By: lalala
Subject: Paying and Paying and Paying
Date Posted: 14/October/2009 at 6:55pm
I am amazed at how many times I have seen this circumstance occur on this forum ...where someone pays and pays and pays and then, when one of those rare occasions comes along where they are actually allowed to find out thier remaining balance ...presto ...the remaining balance is amazingly exactly (and I mean EXACTLY) the original amount they owed from the very beginning of thier loan.  I don't believe thier accounting is honest ...way too much of a co-ink-y-dink to think this is possible at the frequency that I see it.
 
I too had this happen to me.  I paid every single payment that was owed, on time, for over five years after I graduated.  When my student loans finally drove me to declare bankruptcy I was dismayed to find out that my SL loan balances ...both of them ...were TO THE DOLLAR the exact amount they were the day I left school.  I have done some math of my own and proved to myself that these morons are positively cooking the books.  It's all a big scam and my 20k of payments just went nowhere ...   POOF.
 
That was several years ago now and it was then that I realized that our government lies, commits fraud, abuses and misleads its most vulnerable citizens ...and on and on (insert your own favorite rant here).
 
I just wanted to point out how often I have heard this theme:  pay and pay and pay just to find out you still owe the same amount you have always owed ...and probably always will owe.  Is there no way to expose the accounting fraud these clowns are commiting?  No, I guess not hey.
 
Good luck everyone, and keep up the good fight.
 
P.S. Remember you can always walk away from materialistic bondage and just 'be'.  My life has become so much richer ever since I dropped consumerism from my diet.  What need have I of this thing you call a 'credit score' ...that's just a part of their game anyway.  Now that you've had a taste of their barbaric principles surrounding their money coveting ways, why would you still try and aspire to their materialistic values?  Just take your trucks out of their sandbox and go home.  All their fear is just an illusion ...don't buy into it.
 



Replies:
Posted By: Dingo
Date Posted: 15/October/2009 at 5:08am
What need have I of this thing you call a 'credit score' ...that's just a part of their game anyway.

Unless you're someone who might actually want to own a home or use a credit card or have the ability to write cheques or even, in many cases, be permitted to open a bank account....


Posted By: administrator
Date Posted: 15/October/2009 at 5:30am
Or even rent an apartment!

-------------
Administrator
Mark OMeara
Author of Let Go and Heal: Recovery from Emotional Pain
https://LaughSingWrite.com - http://bit.ly/heal2024


Posted By: lalala
Date Posted: 15/October/2009 at 7:14am
Originally posted by Dingo Dingo wrote:

What need have I of this thing you call a 'credit score' ...that's just a part of their game anyway.

Unless you're someone who might actually want to own a home or use a credit card or have the ability to write cheques or even, in many cases, be permitted to open a bank account....
 
This is exactly what I mean ...you just beleive these fearfull threats because you choose to.
 
I have a bank account ...they just used to hold all my checks until they cleared ...but after 6 months of clean transactions they took the holds off at my request.  I was given a credit card within a year of my discharge from bankruptcy (seven years my ass).  I don't use it though, I don't do credit anymore.
 
As for owning a home ...no, I don't want a 500k home that will be worth a fraction of the price I paid once the baby boomers start unloading them in massive numbers to try and recoup their equity.  I know many people who would make different choices in their lives if they weren't tied to a mortgage ...and these people are often miserable as a result, leading to failed marriages, failed parenting, etc, etc.
 
As for renting an apartment ...just don't ...rent a house like I do.  Not all landlors are foolish enough to think a credit score actually reflects who you are as a person.  My landlord used to use credit scores until he noticed some of the best people on paper turned out to be some of his worst tenants.  With me he went with his gut after meeting me, and he claims we are the best tenants he's ever had and hopes we stay forever.
 
These urban legends about tragic outcomes, while occasionally true, do not apply 100% accross the board ...sometimes you just have to think outside of the box. After all, they told you getting an education was the key to your prosperity ...and how has that worked out for everyone on this site.  When someone is using fear to manipulate your choices, you can bet you are being lied to.
 
I see so many people on this site who are scared, depressed, even suicidal ...because they've been told this crisis is going to ruin their lives.  I'm just offering an alternative point of view, based on my own experience, to show how these fear based assumptions are not always true.  But, each of us has to find his or her own path ...and if you think a big house you own and a few fancy cars are going to bring you happiness, then maybe its your destiny to explore that and see if its really true... for most people it is not, and sadly they find out to late.
 
I am not a young person, and having lived on both sides of the fence, I prefer my life now a thousand fold over the years I spent in the rat race stressed out and panicking.  I used to stress over how to buy a home ...I used to think my survival depended on it.  These thoughts are what led me to go back to school at middle age, which only just succeeded in landing me in this student loan mess.  Now I realize these fears were just something I had been taught ...and they turned out to be completely false.  Gee, I wonder what the motivation was for filling my head with this crap ...profit maybe?
 
I should probably just go back to lurking on this site, I suspect I am just going to ruffle feathers.
 
Are their no comments regarding the point in my first post ...that regardless of how many years you pay, many people still owe roughly the original amount of their loan.  Nobody finds this a little suspect?
 


Posted By: administrator
Date Posted: 15/October/2009 at 6:35pm
You raise some very good points....  and regarding no comments about your first post.... it is so true that many people owe the original amount of their loan.  Interest relief does that... just pays the interest, and many people have paid thousands and have barely touched the principle.  No posts in a forum like this usually signifies agreement.

-------------
Administrator
Mark OMeara
Author of Let Go and Heal: Recovery from Emotional Pain
https://LaughSingWrite.com - http://bit.ly/heal2024


Posted By: Dingo
Date Posted: 15/October/2009 at 7:09pm
This is exactly what I mean ...you just beleive these fearfull threats because you choose to.

No.  I have personal experience of the hassles a bad credit rating comes with.  For instance, I need to write cheques.  After declaring bankruptcy, it took a long time to find a bank that would allow me to open a chequing account: several told me I would need to wait the full 7 years.   My only choice, the bank I ended up, with allows me a chequing account, but refuses me all other services (loans, credit cards) until 7 years after discharge.  

I was able to get a credit card, which I also need (yes, need), but my only option was a secured one, which means I had to pay a cash deposit, it has a high interest rate, and I have to pay a yearly fee for the privilege of using it. 

I don't own a home because I can't afford one and because no one will give me a mortgage anyway because of my poor credit rating and the large amount of student loans I owe.  Instead, because I have to--and indeed want to--live in the city, I pay $12,000 a year in rent, and consider myself lucky since that is far less than most people I know, and I was genuinely concerned that I would be refused the apartment I'm currently in due to my credit score.  To rent a house would cost at minimum twice what I'm currently paying.

I'm fully aware that my experience is not shared by everyone, but as I thought I made clear in my response, not everyone wants or is able to live off the credit grid, and few who are forced to find it as easy as you apparently do. 
 


Posted By: lalala
Date Posted: 16/October/2009 at 4:37pm
Originally posted by Dingo Dingo wrote:

I'm fully aware that my experience is not shared by everyone, but as I thought I made clear in my response, not everyone wants or is able to live off the credit grid, and few who are forced to find it as easy as you apparently do.  
 
Dingo, it was not my intention to offend you ...and I appologize if I have.  I just thought that your first response seemed to imply that with a bad credit score you couldn't have a chequing account, that you couldn't have a credit card, and (regarding our revered administrator) that one couldn't rent somewhere to live.
 
I just wanted to clarify that in fact these things can still be done, albeit I agree, there are a few extra hoops to jump through in most of these cases.  I think there is an important distinction between more difficult and flat out can't.  As you have demonstrated, you can have these things... its just more of a pain in the ass with bad credit. 
 
Regarding living with sh*te credit being 'apparently easy for me', no ...it hasn't been easy at all.  It was much like your situation.  I had to hunt for a rational landlord ...and I couldn't rent the first thing I saw and wanted ...but I did eventually succeed.  I had to hunt far and wide for a bank that would accept me ...but I did find one.  I too had to deposit money on a secured, high interest credit card ...but I did get a credit card.  Possible, just harder ...not can't.
 
Also, I think what you took for 'apparent ease' was actually just 'peace of mind'.  Everything is relative.  You would probably think my life is a hopeless failure, but I think my life is just great.  Yes, there are many doors that are probably permanently closed to me ...but there are just as many windows that have opened that I never even knew existed before.  My head was just getting way to sore banging against that glass ceiling, so now I move sideways instead.
 
Sorry for highjacking this thread ...I hope someone helps the original querent with their question about applying for hardship consideration.  I don't know a lot about the details of this procedure so I had better not attempt an answer. 
 
P.S  Dingo, good luck with your PHD ...you deserve a good life ...we all do.
 
Namaste
 
 
 
 


Posted By: paulaffleck
Date Posted: 17/October/2009 at 4:51am
I think Dingo's reply hits the mark nicely.  Wish as some may that to escape relentless financial stress requires only the mental will to resist "buying in" to a larger societal schema about credit, we all know in the back of our minds that life is easier without that stress.

Give me a person who claims that a financial nightmare does not bother him, and I will give you a person in an admirable state of complete denial.

I am sorry, but this material world forces itself upon all of us.  And let's face it.  People like Dingo aren't talking about how lots of money will make them happy. They are talking about how the constant fear of poverty scares the hell out of them.  They simply want to know that things are going to be okay.  

Paul


Posted By: administrator
Date Posted: 17/October/2009 at 5:06am
I do find that through my Buddhist studies, that some detachment from the problem helps and a positive outlook, while acknowledging the reality is important.  (I'm not a fan of the Power of Now by the way)   I've seen so many people worked up with fear, and I was in that state once too.... so I tried to learn to be grateful for the things I had and used the mantra "its just a number"  Surprisingly it did help abit.  Yes the material world forces itself upon us.... what I found was that by remaining calm and not letting the collection agent get to me, I could finish a call and laugh about it and realize how further along the path of humanity I was compared to the collection agent and that what goes around comes around.  And as the some cultures say "the future will take care of itself."

-------------
Administrator
Mark OMeara
Author of Let Go and Heal: Recovery from Emotional Pain
https://LaughSingWrite.com - http://bit.ly/heal2024


Posted By: Dingo
Date Posted: 17/October/2009 at 5:40am
You didn't offend me, lalala, but your post just confirms for me that what you say--that credit doesn't really matter and that ignoring it brings peace of mind--isn't really true.  Few people have the luxury of being able to add to the search time for an apartment, or to hunt far and wide for a bank that will do business with them.  And having bad credit doesn't just make your life harder, it makes it more expensive as well: for instance, you can get a secured credit card, but you'll pay more for it. 

Giving up the high-stress corporate rat-race (what I assume you were referring to when you mentioned the "glass ceiling") is one thing; trying to survive with a low income and bad credit is a vastly different thing.  As paulaffleck says, it's not about living a simpler life by rejecting materialism/consumerism, but rather about surviving in a world where, like it or not, things like one's credit rating matter a great deal and can affect every aspect of one's life. 

As for my PhD, well, at present it's not looking good.  My bad credit, due to a bankruptcy caused in part by student loans, means I can't consolidate my outstanding student loans (which will be in repayment as of February) in one bank loan.  That means that, while a person with good credit could probably negotiate a lower monthly payment of the total amount owing, I can't.  Meanwhile all my PhD-related funding runs out in August, leaving me with three choices: 1.  go bankrupt a second time; 2. quit my program and go to work to pay off the loans; 3. try to work full time while writing a PhD dissertation.




Posted By: administrator
Date Posted: 18/October/2009 at 5:39am
moved from urgent help needed

-------------
Administrator
Mark OMeara
Author of Let Go and Heal: Recovery from Emotional Pain
https://LaughSingWrite.com - http://bit.ly/heal2024


Posted By: welschprincess
Date Posted: 02/March/2011 at 5:40am
I just wanted to post this reply to let you, and the others who might have doubts re: your thoughts on the validity of credit scores, know that- you are accurate.

I was the typical naive consumer- as soon as I turned 19 I got a credit card for 'emergency purposes'.  Hah, I know, that's how it starts.  By the age of 26 I found myself with about $30,000 worth of high consumer debt and loans.  While I never missed a minimum payment and immaculately maintained my accounts and high credit score- my minimum debt payments were already over $700 a month, and I knew I had no exit strategy.  I investigated my options- interest negotations, consumer proposal, bankruptcy- but was not ready for those serious routes.  I reached out to my cousin, a financial agent.  What I learned from her re: credit, and loans, and debt management, and lendors- blew my mind.  It still p's me off that this is not standard education in school- but I believe the reason is the Financial Industry has done such a bang-up job of keeping us in the dark that 99% of people just plain don't know and therefore aren't p'd.

Listen to me: You should be p'd.

I was so inspired I became a financial agent myself.  After two years of working my full time job as well as commissions from clients on the side- I got my debt down to $12,000.  And then a curve ball hit me- a loan I had joint with my ex-fiance was never closed by him when we paid it off together post-breakup.  It became bigger loan, then a credit card- maxxed out to $25,000, and I was on the paperwork.  Sigh.  Cautionary Lesson: ALWAYS make sure you are removed from paperwork.  He declared bankruptcy, they came after me, I couldn't possibly catch up his 4 months of back payments plus $500 in minimum payments moving forward.  I made a consumer proposal, a creditor rejected it, and I was forced into bankrtupcy- and automatically lost half of my business licenses to act as an agent.  (Side note: The agency I worked for decided to keep me on and fought to maintain- and won- my other licenses so I could continue working, citing extraordinary circumstances.)

Lesson #1: In December 2008 RBC examined 2 years worth of my self-employed records and deemed my self-employed income stable and sufficient, and my juicy credit score sufficient, to allow me to have a new car at $350/month for 6 years.  When I made my consumer proposal it was for a $10,000 down payment from my investments and $400/month over 4 years- a whopping offer of 60% of my and the ex's total debt (including RBC) when the going offer is 30% (I was doing my damndest to avoid bankruptcy and the impact to my business licenses).  Guess who rejected it?  RBC.  They deemed me and my self-employed income RISKY to commit to it.  It had only been 6 months since I was approved for the car with flying colors.

Lesson #2: Bankruptcy was a rough egg to swallow from the business side- but I didn't feel ashamed.  I knew what had happened to me was an extraordinary circumstances resulting from my own young ignorance re: ensuring I was removed from paperwork or the account closed.  I would soon learn that you shouldn't be ashamed period- credit is a lie.

Lesson #3: My creditors could have had 60% of my debt and they rejected me.  It still blows my trustee's mind.  SEVEN months later I was debt free, after giving them a paltry total of $4000 based on the formulas of my province.  You made your bed a-holes, now you lie in it. 

Lesson #4: The first thing my trustee had me do was open a new bank account before the bankruptcy went through- and with an institution I had no debts with, just to be cautious.  However, since then I have opened 1: Savings Account and USD Account with same bank, and 2. Chequing, savings and USD Account with new bank.  Never. Once. Had. An. Issue.  They don't look, they don't ask, credit has nothing to do with it.

Lesson #5: I have a credit card.  I got a credit card within 3 months of my discharge.  I actually applied for a secure credit card (where you send them a sum of funds, they issue the credit card in that amount (thus protecting the institution from risk), your statements and payments are recorded on your credit to begin rebuilding process.  The institution mailed me back re: my application and approved me for better: after reviewing my assets, liabilities, and self-employed income they felt I was safe enough for matching my deposit with an equal amount of credit.

Note: This insitution was out of the 'Big 6' in Canada.  TD, RBC, CIBC, BMO, HSBC, Scotia.  You will have to work outside of the big 5 for your seven years because they are thugs who link arms and keep insiders in, and outsiders out.  None of them will even allow you to use their secure credit card products- saying they are not for those who wish to rebuild your credit (add to that 'if you have defaulted on anything with any of them')- but for those new to the country with no previous credit history in the country.  It's really not that hard to work outside of the Big 6.  I went with Capital One, and there were EIGHT other vendors out there who were offering secure credit card products for those wanting to rebuild.

Also- last month I need to change cell phone providers.  They performed a credit check, I held my breathe (I had told them about being a discharged bankrupt), and he said well- the good news is you passed the check without even a notation.  I've only been discharged for 1 year and I've only had the credit card reporting in for 9 months.

That's fine- in seven years I will have seven years of credit reporting, and will have a sizeable down payment accrued.  In seven years I can walk through the door of any of The Big 6, slap my down payment down and print out my credit report and walk out with a stellar rate.  You know why? 

Lesson #5:  Money talks.  If you have 15% or more for a down payment you are now the screaming minority of mortgage applications.  Red carpets will sprout from beautiful fountains, shooting across the lobby of the branch you just stepped into, to fall under your feet.  Account agents will engage in an 'American Gladiator' style progress to the door to greet you.  Well- they would if these things were floating just above your head, but if they knew it when you walked in, that's what would happen.  An institution will not refuse you a loan or mortgage with such a desireable down payment- even if your credit is poor (Note: You would not get the best rate of course) and if, like me, you have also been able to ninja-style rebuild your credit, you would be laughing to the bank and get a good rate to boot. 

Lesson #6: Landlords?  Most of the time I rent privately from someone who own the place- and when presented with my documents for discharge, etc. and chatting with them a bit about what went down- they have been very understanding and I got those apartments on the merit of my long-time self-employed contract, my income, my now completely liability-free self, and my personality.  Once I did come across across a property management company- it was two months after discharge: I applied for an apartment and they performed a credit check.  Got the apartment.

Lesson #7: You're not alone.  When I shook hands with my trustee for the last time (we had actually become and stayed friends) she said to me "If you are ever applying for anything- credit, landlord, etc.- don't hesitate to have them contact me.  I love taking the time to de-brain-wash landlords and in-house loan agents to what one would think is the obvious: The applicant in front of you is debt free.  They have zero liabilities.  They have a looooot of cash flow.  Can you say the same about the one behind him/her with the sparkling credit score and $1000/mo. in minimum payments?  They tend to come around rather quickly after I remind them of that."

Never let your fears re: credit scores hold you back from making financial decisions in your best interest.  Credit is not the same beast it used to be- there are a lot more options for people now.  (Let's not even forget that credit bureaus are private companies not regulated by our governement, and they are not obligated to fix incorrect credit entries in any particular frame of time- but that's a whole other can of worms for you to google).  Do what's right for you- credit is an illusion of control and they can take it away from you in four seconds- but it's just as easy to get it back.

Over and out
-Person with zero debt, paid for her new car in cash, $6k in her savings account, a credit score, discharged <1 year.  High five 'lalala'.




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