Wage garnishment related to student loans...has this happened to anyone?

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I received an email from my employer today stating that my wages will be garnished. I will no longer receive any pay. I tried to contact them, but the offices are closed for today and I'm going crazy. The form that my employer sent me has the name of the company that filed the garnishment. It's for student loans and it's from a company that I know nothing about. My student loans were deferred for a few months and I just started making payments again but to another company. I don't even know who this company is or why they are garnishing my wages. I work for a few diff agencies per diem and however the company got my info for this employer I guess they can get it for my other employers as well and garnish those wages too. Until I am able to speak with my employer tomorrow to find out what's going on, I will be going crazy.

Has anyone had this happen? What did you do? Did they take your whole check or just a percentage?

Specializes in Trauma-Surgical, Case Management, Clinic.

Update: I learn something new everyday. Thanks for all the helpful responses.

I went to the national student loan database. I did not even know this existed, but I was probably given this information when I was told to do financial aid exit counseling. I was so happy to be graduating, done with school, and focusing on getting my first job that I paid no attention. I was also not focused on it because I knew I had a grace period so it was nothing that I had to take care of right away. After the grace period was up, a company contacted me about making payments on my loans. That is the company I have been paying for a few years now. I thought that they were servicing all my loans. They were not! No one else contacted me regarding student loans so I had no idea. After looking at the database I have a total of 11 loans, 7 of them are defaulted on. The only ones that are current are the ones that are being serviced by the one company I've been paying.

I have no idea how I defaulted on all of these loans and they have not shown up on any of my credit reports. I subscribe to Experian monthly and am able the check the other 2 credit reporting agencies every 6 mo. Nothing on my credit reports and the other loans are all listed under other servicing agencies that didn't contact me. This is all my fault for being irresponsible and making assumptions. I'm now in some deep sh*t.

Good news is someone finally called regarding the wage garnishment and I was offered the loan rehab program to stop the wage garnishment and have the default removed from my credit after making on time payments for 9 mo. So my plan is to do this with the other defaulted loans (they are not on my credit, but it would stop future wage garnishment and income tax garnishment).

What I would really like to do is consolidate the remainder of my loans. I have not found a lot of helpful info on how to do that or if it's even possible at this point in the situation that I'm in. It's just going to be really hard to keep up with 9 diff loan payments. Has anyone else consolidated loans or have any info on how to go about doing this??

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You need to be very careful about consolidation if you plan to go back to school and use the educational deferment at any point in your future. Many consolidation programs remove any and all deferment options.

Having said that, take time to call your various lenders to see what they can offer you. Tell them the total amount of loans you have, the companies that have them, and ask their terms (rates, payment options, etc) Do not let them "run numbers" with your social or do a credit check at this time. If you know your credit score you can tell them and they can give you potential rates that will depend on them verifying your score. I say this because you don't want a bunch of lenders checking your credit at once, it will damage your credit even more.

Check with your bank too, many do consolidation loans even if your credit is shaky. They know you can't declare bankruptcy on it and its easy for them to get garnishment if you default. So its a "safe" loan for them to give.

Once you find a lender with decent rates and terms, they will walk you through the process.

Be aware: if you include the loans that are in rehab, it will stop the garnishment but will also leave those defaults on your record. I'd deal with rehab first then do consolidation.

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Also, I've been hearing about a credit union that is for the navy. Apparently anyone can join. My friend got his car loan through them at 1.7% which is crazy cheap. Not sure if they do consolidation, but it would be worth google time to find out!

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Specializes in Trauma-Surgical, Case Management, Clinic.

Another update: I have been able do the rehab program with all of my defaulted loans. My total payments are only 550/mo, that's better than I thought. The crazy thing is 4 of the loans that were in default were being serviced by the same company that I was actually paying on loans to. No one could seem to tell me how the payments I was making went to half the loans and how the other went to default. Still confused on that on but I'm fixing things. Also, I was given a number for the national loan locator line. I haven't tried it yet but apparently they locate info on any loans you have out there if anyone is interested.

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You need to see an attorney and I'll tell you why.

Nobody can garnish your wages without a court order. That means the company that sought to garnish your wages, filed a judgment, there was a court date, you were sent notices of the court date and when you did not show, the court awarded the garnishment.

That is how it worked.

This is also why you need to make sure that the student loan company ALWAYS has your current address. So many students move and don't inform their student loan company...and this is what happens. If your loan gets sold, they cannot reach you.

When your loans were deferred, they were deferred for a certain number of months, typically 6...they gave you date of when the deferment would end, so it was up to you to keep up with it.

HR, has to give you the name of the company that is garnishing your wages....my advice is to call them found out under whose authority was granted, and trace it back from there.

My guess is that your loan was sold and they could not reach you to tell you that it was sold, therefore, you were sending your payments to the wrong place.

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If you default on a student loan, the government can garnish your wages and confiscate your tax refund. They do not have to go to court and get a judgement against you as other creditors would. It's what you agreed to when you signed the promissory note.

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I need to correct a misconception being promulgated here.... student loans are the ONLY loans that do NOT have to have a judgment to get an order for wage garnishment.

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Specializes in Emergency.

By now you may have figured something out, but when I graduated, I had a number of different loans as well...I called the company and asked if they could consolidate them all together. The company did it directly for me and because I did that they gave me a (extremely small) decrease in the interest rate. It helped.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Clinical Documentation Specialist.

During my hospital orientation we were told that you will be immediately fired, under the code of conduct, for nonpayment of federally funded student loans. I was shocked to hear this!

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