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Student Loan Co-Signer Attempting to Claim Fraud

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troutfart

Junior Member
New York State

Hello All,

This is my first post on this site, and am looking for some legal advice regarding a quite screwy situation I have just found myself in.

A some background information, I was a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology for ~6 years, and did not graduate. Throughout my time there I had taken out many student loans to pay for tuition. Each year I would take out both Federal and Private loans. Due to my lack of any / poor credit, every loan I applied for required a Co-Signer. My father offered and agreed to co-signed every loan application that I needed, in order to fund my education. This was for a number of loans, I'd say at least 6 (possibly more) throughout my entire time at RIT, totaling in tens of thousands of dollars.

Fast forward to today, and it's been a year since I've been a fully matriculated student. I haven't made a single payment on any of my loans, and am unemployed. To be honest I haven't even spoken with any of the lender reps that call constantly. I also have received plenty of letters, most of which are just being piled up on my dresser.

On top of these extreme financial problems that I am having, today I learned something that simply blew my mind.

My Father (the Co-Signer of ALL of my student loans) hands me a letter that was addressed to him from Citi and tells me to read it. The first line states " You recently conveyed your concern that a possible forgery may have taken place on an account with Citibank."

Upon asking my father what in the world this is about, he tells me that he is "sick of all of the phone calls" and that he is not going to pay for my loans, and if I don't, that I'm going to jail. When I asked how I am going to be sent to jail because of this, he says that because he's going to tell the banks that I forged every single loan application, and fraudulently added him as a cosigner.

I tried to explain to him there are records of his signatures, and probably even vocal agreements recorded and stored somewhere for every time he co-signed one of the MANY applications over the last 6 years.

My father is trying to escape any and all responsibility by starting to tell lenders that I fraudulently added him as a co-signer on my student loan applications. My mind is still blown that he would do such a thing, but I come here to you all for advice on what in the world I should do, and where to even begin to try taking care of this ridiculous situation.

If I have posted this in the wrong subforum I apologize, this has been my first post. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. I welcome any and all comments regarding this ridiculous matter. Thank you very much for taking your time to read this.
 


ecmst12

Senior Member
Why on EARTH have you not applied for a deferrment on your loans? You are ignoring the calls and letting your credit and your father's credit be trashed...for what?

Your dad's scheme is not going to work. But what you are doing to him is horrible. You need to take responsibility for your debts and talk to them. Since when does ignoring a problem ever make it go away?
 

csi7

Senior Member
I agree. You can file for deferment, you can apply for income based repayment, income sensitive repayment, and you can do all of these things on-line like you are asking this question.

I would check into all of those programs, plus check out ForgiveStudentLoanDebt.com for more information on how to successfully manage the application process for these programs.

You will save yourself a lot of time, effort, and heartache by handling this issue up front, now.
 

latigo

Senior Member
New York State

Hello All,

This is my first post on this site, and am looking for some legal advice regarding a quite screwy situation I have just found myself in.

A some background information, I was a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology for ~6 years, and did not graduate. Throughout my time there I had taken out many student loans to pay for tuition. Each year I would take out both Federal and Private loans. Due to my lack of any / poor credit, every loan I applied for required a Co-Signer. My father offered and agreed to co-signed every loan application that I needed, in order to fund my education. This was for a number of loans, I'd say at least 6 (possibly more) throughout my entire time at RIT, totaling in tens of thousands of dollars.

Fast forward to today, and it's been a year since I've been a fully matriculated student. I haven't made a single payment on any of my loans, and am unemployed. To be honest I haven't even spoken with any of the lender reps that call constantly. I also have received plenty of letters, most of which are just being piled up on my dresser.

On top of these extreme financial problems that I am having, today I learned something that simply blew my mind.

My Father (the Co-Signer of ALL of my student loans) hands me a letter that was addressed to him from Citi and tells me to read it. The first line states " You recently conveyed your concern that a possible forgery may have taken place on an account with Citibank."

Upon asking my father what in the world this is about, he tells me that he is "sick of all of the phone calls" and that he is not going to pay for my loans, and if I don't, that I'm going to jail. When I asked how I am going to be sent to jail because of this, he says that because he's going to tell the banks that I forged every single loan application, and fraudulently added him as a cosigner.

I tried to explain to him there are records of his signatures, and probably even vocal agreements recorded and stored somewhere for every time he co-signed one of the MANY applications over the last 6 years.

My father is trying to escape any and all responsibility by starting to tell lenders that I fraudulently added him as a co-signer on my student loan applications. My mind is still blown that he would do such a thing, but I come here to you all for advice on what in the world I should do, and where to even begin to try taking care of this ridiculous situation.

If I have posted this in the wrong subforum I apologize, this has been my first post. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. I welcome any and all comments regarding this ridiculous matter. Thank you very much for taking your time to read this.
You need to flush this bird out of the bush! Call his bluff, so to speak. Nip it in the bud as Barney Fife would say. In other words, poppa either _____ or gets off of the chamber pot.

Otherwise, worrying over this is going to eat you alive. It would anybody. Okay?

So here is a suggestion, which is what I would do as your attorney satisfied that you are innocent of any wrongdoing.

Pay a personal visit to the local police/sheriff. Try to meet with the proper detective, fraud division, and explain everything that what you have written here.

Now the detective may or may not express his or her desire to meet with your father. In fact you may not be able to even meet with such a detective, (not immediately anyway) as they are fairly busy people.

But in any event you can ask and receive a business card of one of the detectives in the fraud division.

Then you take that card back to your father and tell you father that the detective does want to meet with him and he is to call the detective to discuss his pressing criminal charges.

If you will do this, my guess is that poppa will be shortly in need of that chamber pot.

Because if he is lying, which you say he is, then he is not about to meet with any detective or sign any affidavit and subject himself to felony charges. And there will be no more such letters to Citi.
 

swalsh411

Senior Member
Your father's plan will not work. The people who investigate these issues are not idiots.

You and your Dad are both deadbeats and the reason why student loans are generally not discharged in bankruptcy. Unless you both manage to avoid working for the rest of your lives, one of you will pay these back one way or another. You really need to get a job, any job, and at least make some effort to meet your obligations. I also hope that if you ever have children you do a better job than your father or instilling financial responsibility.
 

Ozark_Sophist

Senior Member
Don't delay addressing loans. If they have not already gone into default, you can consolidate and defer and/or makes arrangements based on your income. Once loan goes to default, you have to make nine consecutive payments before you can defer or qualify for modified payment. You will have problems getting a job, an apartment, health care, auto insurance, etc, with these loans over your head.
 

Proseguru

Member
Your father would be unwise to do so and I think he knows this. He is trying to get YOU to pay. 6 yrs of college and no degree? Good job.
 

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