Northwest Education Loan Association

NELA guarantees student loans issued in the State of Washington against defaults under the FFEL loan program (i.e. government student loans). In 1992 they harassed me about being late on my payments when I was only marginally past due. In 1993 they tricked me into thinking I was in default when I was not. Furthermore, when they were supposed to be helping me avoid default through "pre-claims assistance," they were actually deliberately attempting to engineer my default. I was sent a final demand letter at 122 days past due (according to their records) that was supposed to be sent out at 180 days past due. However, I was in fact only 30 days past due at that time based on other records of theirs. Anyway, not knowing what to do, I paid the loans off through consolidation. They tried to overcharge me commissions (I have documentation), but dropped the fees to the right amount when I questioned it. So a couple years later, I noticed they were reporting me as past due on my credit report. I went to them and received a letter stating the loans were paid in full and my credit report would be fixed. Two years after that, I noticed they were reporting outstanding balances, duplicate accounts, bankruptcy, past due status. I got another letter stating I was paid in full. But the false reporting continued. I eventually found out "paid in full" only refers to principle balance in their estimation. Also, it seems they really did want to collect another 33% commission on top of the 25% already paid on a loan that never should have defaulted anyway since it should have been deferred based on in-school status they knew about as shown in phone records. Over the last 1.5 years I have sent them numerous letters which have received bogus responses. I filed a lawsuit earlier this year and the false information still shows on my report. I guess we will see what happens in court. Heh heh.