AES - American Education Services
Student loan sent to collections after ex-husband claimed forgery

In the fall, I took out two student loans, one with AES and the other one I thought was with Suntrust (on my credit report it is Wells Fargo). My husband at the time co-signed on both student loans with me. He signed the loan papers and faxed in all supporting documents. (We were living apart because I wanted to attend college in a different city.) While I was attending college, I was in a car accident in March and fractured my neck. I had to leave school and start paying on my AES student loan. (By the way, these are both private loans. As of today my Wells Fargo loan is still in deferment.) So instead of paying, I put my AES loan in a hardship forbearance for 6 months. When it came out of forbearance, I made my payments on time.

In the meantime, I separated from my husband and we got a divorce in October. In the divorce papers, the judge ordered him to remove my name from our home mortgage, and I was ordered to remove his name from the education loans. This was clearly stated in the court documents, which I still have copies of to this day. Of course, you can't just do that based on a divorce document, and AES refused to remove his name unless I consolidated my loans. Since I had to have a co-signer on my loans because I didn't make enough money, obviously no one was going to consolidate $40,000 of student loans with just my name on them, so I was stuck and couldn't get his name off.

I continued to make payments for a few more months. Then I had to put them in forbearance once again because I had a baby. I did this in February. I faxed in the forms and they approved it. All this time I was assuming my loan was in forbearance, when in July I pulled my annual credit report and found something quite shocking. My student loan with AES was 120 days past due. I called AES to find out what happened. A customer service rep told me it was a fraud account. I told them they must be crazy. They said that in February my ex-husband had a lawyer notarize his signature and they faxed it in, saying I forged his signature. I immediately knew who the lawyer was (his best friend is a lawyer, the same lawyer who did our divorce) and asked if it was that lawyer (I won't mention his name), and she said yes. So the account had been under investigation beginning in February.

I then asked the rude girl why my account was 120 days past due when I had it in forbearance. She said an account cannot be in forbearance if it is under investigation. I told her I had the approval letter for forbearance from AES, but she didn't care. She said my loan had been sent to Zwicker and Associates for them to collect and possibly sue me. AES never once contacted me to let me know what was going on or to ask if I had any supporting documents to dispute it or anything of that nature. If they had, I could have easily shown them the divorce documents asking me to remove his name from the student loan.

I immediately called my ex and asked him why he did this. (I should have taped the phone conversation, but I do not know if that is legal or not.) He said the only way to get his name off the house was to refinance, and he couldn't get that done with the student loans on his credit report. Claiming fraud/forgery was the only way he could get his name off and at the same time put the house solely in his name. Now I am assuming he did the same thing with the Wells Fargo student loan (he told me he did), but they didn't dump my loan in collections. They have kept it in good standing and just changed the responsibility portion to Individual borrower on my credit report.

After 2 months of trying to speak to someone in the fraud department at AES, all I got was a run-around. I would call daily and ask to speak to a manager, and I would tell him my story and he would say he would check on it and call me back. I never, not once, got a call back from anyone. I must have told my story over 100 times. A month later, the default department called me for a payment, and I told the guy my story, and he connected me with the fraud department so I could dispute the allegation. I finally got to plead my case with a lady in the department, only to have her tell me it was too late and there was nothing they could do once the loan was in collections. She wouldn't hear me out or let me fax her the divorce documents. She said I should have disputed it during the fraud investigation, which I never even knew occurred.

My point is that now I'm stuck with a 20,000 payment to Zwicker and Associates (the collection company). For over a year now, I have made them payments of 237.00 a month on time, but I cannot afford to pay off the loan, and my credit is ruined until it is paid in full. I asked them in October of 07 if they were going to sue me, and they said no unless I miss a payment, but they don't like to see loans in collections for 3 or 4 years. I told my account rep at Zwicker and Associates he could sue away. I didn't own a thing for them to take, so I highly doubt they will sue, as it will cost them too much money only to get nothing.

Now I don't know what to do to rectify this. I don't have the money to hire a lawyer to sue my ex. (I'd rather not. I don't want a thing to do with him, but I'd love to stick it to him.) I'm furious with AES for not doing a proper investigation when someone claims fraud. Anyone being accused should have a right to stand up for themselves. AES really dropped the ball here. If I could afford to sue them, I would.

Company: AES - American Education Services
Country: USA
State: Pennsylvania
City: Harrisburg
Address: PO Box 2461
Phone: 8002330557

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