Consumer complaint received 2019-07-12
Company: Automated Collection Services, Inc.
State: UT
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan
Sub-issue: Can't get other flexible options for repaying your loan

Complaint:
A company called ACSI who also identifies themselves as XXXX XXXX XXXX assistance has been sending me letters demanding that I repay my student loan debt and threatening to garnish my wages. They claim to own the debt now and arbitrarily added almost {$25000.00} to my original student loan claiming that it was for penalties. 

I explained my financial situation and that I am on XXXX, having been out of work for over a year now. I sent them my financial disclosure information but they insist that they will garnish my wages for 15 % despite the fact that I am on XXXX and that my wages have been drastically reduced down to 60 %. They claim I make more than what they think I should be allowed but they're not taking into consideration the amount of my income that has to be set aside for taxes. I'm working on getting documentation from my XXXX insurance company on how much the taxes are going to be in to have them automatically deducted from my monthly pays that I can demonstrate how little my income really is. 

This collection agency is basing the garnishment not just upon any income they think I'm making, but based off of income that my husband brings in which is not fair because I was not married to him when I was going through school and he had nothing to do with my student loan debt. When I try to call the phone number in the notice of garnishment letter they sent me, it was to a completely unrelated company. The phone number they provided me was one XXXX, the number for an organization called " feed the poor '' - this is also a Spanish only line and I don't speak XXXX. 

I tried calling a ACSI and got a voicemail so I left a message. This is unconscionable what they are doing and I am worried about whether or not they are even legitimate not just given the arbitrary fees they tacked onto to my original loan but the fact that they gave me a completely unrelated phone number to call. I had previously done a year 's worth of loan rehabilitation but no one is acknowledging the payments I made. Those payments are not being acknowledged and seem to have disappeared. 

I ran into severe medical problems but I had completed that years worth of payments. My debt was conveniently sold off at that time and I lost track of it because of all the medical problems I was having. Can they even garnish my XXXX income? It is through private XXXX insurance but I have been working with Social Security trying to file XXXX through them. My loans are almost 20 years old. The collection agencies are claiming I owe twice as much as my original loans because of alleged fees and interest but mostly bogus collection fees. At this rate, I will never be able to repay this loan I get out of debt. It's a lifetime of financial slavery. I didn't even benefit from the bachelor 's degrees I got from University of XXXX. It took me at least 15 years to finally get a minor promotion that had required that I have a XXXX XXXX degree. No one would promote me prior to that especially due to my medical problems. 

The phone number for ACSI where I was finally able to leave a message is XXXX XXXX, extension XXXX. The two for that line is XXXX XXXX. They have the account under my maiden name, XXXX XXXX. Alleged acct # XXXX. Do you have a lawyer who is willing to help me challenge this oh, both the amount they claim I owe this point and the garnishment?

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation