Posted on 06/15/2012 9:18:10 AM PDT by C19fan
A few months after he buried his son, Francisco Reynoso began getting notices in the mail. Then the debt collectors came calling.
"They would say, 'We don't care what happened with your son, you have to pay us,'" recalled Reynoso, a gardener from Palmdale, Calif. Reynoso's son, Freddy, had been the pride of his family and the first to go to college. In 2005, after Freddy was accepted to Boston's Berklee College of Music, his father co-signed on his hefty private student loans, making him fully liable should Freddy be unwilling or unable to repay them. It was no small decision for a man who made just over $21,000 in 2011, according to his tax returns.
(Excerpt) Read more at propublica.org ...
And the loans are maddeningly opaque. Despite the help of a lawyer, Reynoso has not been able to determine exactly how much he owes, or even what company holds his loans. Just as happened with home mortgages in the boom years before the 2008 financial crash, his son's student loans have been sold and resold, and at least one was likely bundled into a complex Wall Street security. But the trail of those transactions ends at a wall of corporate silence from companies that include two household names: banking giant UBS and Xerox, which owns the loan servicer handling the bulk of his loans. Left without answers is a bereaved father.The risk of cosigning on Freddy's loans seemed to have been worth it when he graduated in May 2008 and began looking for a job in the music industry. He was on the way back from a job interview on the evening of Sept. 4 when he lost control of his car and it rolled over. Freddy's family learned of his death the next morning.
The grief was relentless; the debt collectors, ruthless. By law [1], debt collectors must go through a debtor's attorney if one has been hired, but even after Reynoso hired an attorney, he said they continued to call him every day, several times a day, for about a year and a half: "I would tell them to call the lawyer. And they would still say, 'The lawyer doesn't owe us. You're the one who owes us. You're the one who has to pay us.'"
Meanwhile, Reynoso was still reeling: "I was crying for him every day,” he said.
The question of to whom Reynoso's debts are actually owed — and who has the authority to forgive them — is a mystery that thus far neither Reynoso nor his lawyer has been able to solve.
One of Freddy's student loans was cancelled after his death [2] without a problem: his federal loan. That's because the government cancels student loans if a student dies [2].
But the bulk of Freddy's loans were private student loans, which typically offer less favorable interest rates and fewer consumer protections. Only a few [3] private student lenders [4] offer debt discharges in the event of the borrower's death, though public outcry over specific cases has swayed lenders to grant occasional death discharges.
silverleaf wrote:
what part of “co sign” did this man not understand?
The part where your son DIES, you heartless SOB. Yes, I blame your mother.
Enough about the rest. Why don’t you just shut up and say a prayer for him and his son.
It’s one thing to risk your lifelong indebitedness for a son to potentially have a better life, or that he even have wasted it and dropped out, and yet another to lose the son and only have the debt.
Pray, donate money, or move on Mr. Selfish.
Music is one of those fields where you won't make much money unless you are one of the few with real talent. If you possess the talent, you won't need to spend $160K getting educated. If not, the $160K will be a waste.
Here is the money point:
“his father co-signed”
NEVER Never consign for anyone for any reason. For 160K to study music means this is idiocy squared.
Meanwhile, 160K! Give me a break....for an undergrad degree in the Arts. Folks, we are doomed when idiots do things like this and expect sympathy.
They end up playing on a Green Line platform.
That is true. So many Berklee students are silly little girls, wasting Daddy’s money. A friend of mine was the repair weasel at Daddy’s Junky Music across the street. So many girls. New ones every year. Strange part is, he looks like Ron Jeremy.
Well no wonder there's so many girls.....
To add more oomph to your argument:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Berklee_College_of_Music_alumni
my son’s best friend is a graduate as well, he’s a phenomenal musician! :)
Our son died and we paid his debts
Even though we did not CO-SIGN his debts
dipshit
Yes, we did. I think it was particularly bad among law students.
The proper response to that problem is no bank loans money for law degrees.
many if most jobs DO NOT require a college degree...in reality....its just a way of eliminating a whole bunch of people so you can get "like minded" people in the jobs you have to offer....
but there is no debating IMO that a good plumber is as essential but probably way more so than a social worker or an insurance salesmen...etc...
how do we make it up financially to these people?
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