Consumer complaint received 2015-06-27
Company: GRANITE STATE MANAGEMENT & RESOURCES
State: NH
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Non-federal student loan
Issue: Dealing with my lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Don't agree with fees charged

Complaint:
This is XXXX of XXXX complaints that have now haunted me for way too long. XXXX foremost I have a major problem with the initial placement of my loan in collections, I was making XXXX payment to granite state management in NH, where they led me to believe XXXX easy payment took care of all of my loans. Not to mention they also led me to believe that my loans covered my entire schooling (which they did not and XXXX.). Long story short, I eventually was contacted by a collection agency by the name of XXXX and told I had to pay XXXX more per month to them for this XXXX private loan that was sent to collections all while still paying on the other loans. I was confused and upset. I disputed XXXX but then began paying this company XXXX a month for fear of them ruining my credit. I was very young when I made this choice to start paying them and I feel now like this was predatory in nature. Then after paying for nearly a decade I assumed that I would be close to paying them off (now XXXX) and figured I would give them a call. All of this having gone on without any legal correspondence (not XXXX letter mailed to either of my addresses that I had lived in that time), only to find out the balance hadn't been dropped but a measly XXXX. I was furious and demanded records of my payments, and a copy of my original contract. I received these things and found that all of my payments had been marked as "attorney"payments and there was no breakdown of principal, interest or collection costs...   just attorney payments. I did some research and found that there were many things going on that were not only unfair but appeared to be illegal. I called them back, informed them that I had looked into this and was told it was not XXXX but the original lender who drafted this. When I called granite state management the refused to speak with me. I again called XXXX and told them I would settle the debt for XXXX. The original loan was for XXXX, I was told my balance was XXXX after paying for more than XXXX years and that they would settle for no less than XXXX. I then finally got a letter informing me I could dispute the debt in writing. So I did just that. I received a call from a different collection agency regarding this matter and explained the whole thing to the gentleman on the phone, he agreed that something wasn't right and said he would loom into it. I never got a call back from him, and then XXXX days ago I got a call from XXXX again. They now are telling me that I owe them XXXX!!!!???? I got quite upset at the man on the phone, he told me that he would knock it down to XXXX and settle. I told him that I wanted to take care of this debt because I want to buy a house which is why I called them XXXX. He then spun that back on me and basically said i could not buy a home because this debt would hurt my credit... As this was a recorded call I asked him if he realized that it was illegal for him to say that to me and he asked me how? I understand this is a small amount of money, and I also understand that one must pay back their debts, but had I not called them apparently id have been paying them for the rest of my life with no idea the debt was growing not shrinking. I am furious and unsure how to handle this problem and these XXXX predatory companies. Please help me.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation