Ten months ago, I came into both a verbal and written agreement with Diversified Collection Services. The agreement was for me to enter a Student Loan Rehabilitation process that required that I make 9 voluntary full payments within 20 days of the due date during 10 consecutive months. After that, a new repayment schedule would be established by the lender after rehabilitation. Additionally, major credit bureaus would be notified to delete any adverse credit rating currently being reported by the guaranty agency in relation to the default.
In all, the contract stresses that I must make 9 consecutive on time monthly payments, and continue to make payments to the firm until the loan is rehabilitated.
Ten months later, I've made all of my nine payments. However, last month, DCS went ahead and withdrew a tenth payment from my account. When I called them, my customer service rep. Carrie Drew gave me some vague excuse that DCS had tried to reach me, but was unable to, which was a lie, since I had spoken to them, and nothing about a tenth payment was said to me. She then transferred me over to their complaints department.
It's been four days now, and the complaints person, Rosie Collins, had supposedly submitted a client inquiry (asking the lender about the status of my account), which should have taken (according to her) 24 hours, but now appears that no one is getting back with her. I had all of my good intentions of working with the creditors and lender to repay my loan, but upon seeing how they are stalling with the process, I seriously suspect that they are stalling the rehabilitation process so that they can keep collecting contingent fees off my loan. For every payment that I've made, they've applied less than 50% of my payment to my balance.
I really need some sound advice on what actions I can take as soon as possible. I've already alerted them that I will be pursuing this matter, and have told them that I will not make any more payments since they are stalling on the account rehabilitation. I do not want them to use this as an excuse to bring my account back to default. I will also be contacting Federal Student Aid and filing a complaint about this collection agency. Is there anything else I could do?
I'd also like to retrieve the 10th payment taken from my bank account so that I can pay the lender rather than the collection agency, and I really want them to expedite the rehabilitation with the lender. Thank you for your help.
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