Hey people of r/personalfinance, PSA if have student loans and are having trouble with them because you aren't making much money, you can switch to an Income Driven Repayment plan. The application is free and can be found here.
There are services out there that are advertising loan consolidation by sending official looking letters, one of which even had a Department of Education logo on it, another came as a secure document. They saying that you qualify for loan consolidation program and to call before a certain date (normally the end of that month). The people who I dealt with wanted $30 a month ($360 a year) to re-enroll me in the income based repayment plan (which apparently you have to do annually, but it's just reporting your family size and income..) and their affiliate wanted $900 to "process the loan documentation". Because this can all be done for free, this is basically a scam, but they claim "it's no different than a company that does you taxes for you". Seems a little different.
I was having a medical issue that was effecting my cognitive skills and ended up agreeing to pay these people. I'm on the mend now, but I'm out $900 for something that could have been done for free and in an even more precarious financial situation then I was in previously.
Corporate logos and contact info for the companies I've had contact with so far can be found here. Don't let them sucker you out of any money.
Submitted February 16, 2017 at 05:43PM by a_username_0 http://ift.tt/2lcRwG8
