National Collegiate Student Loan Trust is a company that purchases allegedly delinquent private student loan debt. We have seen a dramatic increase in the filing of these National Collegiate cases across Pennsylvania since mid 2013. These student loans are always very old and in most cases have been in default for quite a long time. The loans that we have seen have been taken out during the 2004 through 2007 school years, so some of these are more than a decade old. On many of these claims, our clients have NEVER made a payment on the loan and this raises serious Statute of Limitations issues. There have been several instances where NCT has lied about payments being made, simply to – prove – that their lawsuit is filed within the SOL.
NCT has a difficult time in proving that they own your loan. This is the basis of a strong defense.
In our experience with these student loan cases, we have found that the lawsuits filed by National Collegiate are almost always legally insufficient at the onset. In a nutshell, they are defective. They cannot initially meet the above mentioned criteria. We object to these lawsuits on insufficiency grounds with great success. If our objections stick, then the lawsuit is over and you do not owe the debt/loan. This is our goal in defending every single National Collegiate case.
There are several other defenses that we raise to these NCT cases. Many of these loans had a guarantee agreement in them. A guarantee agreement is like an insurance policy. If you default, then the guarantee company pays the claim. If this occurred on your case, then National Collegiate would not be the proper party to sue you. In addition, some of these loans had a rehabilitation agreement in them. A rehabilitation is an effort by the borrower to get out of default and onto a better repayment program. We have found that NCT and its servicer NEVER made this offer of rehabilitation to borrowers. This is clearly a breach of contract law and its also an ethical violation as well.
In the event that National Collegiate is able to cure the insufficiency objections, and we have seen them come close to doing this on several cases recently, then we then move on to defending the claim on its legal merits, i.e. whether you actually had the student loan, whether you actually defaulted on it, when the alleged default occurred, whether the amount is correct, et cetera. Between part one and part two of our defense strategy in defending National Collegiate lawsuits, our success rate is very high. As of the date of this writing, Spring 2021, we have not lost a National Collegiate lawsuit yet… all have either been dismissed or withdrawn or the case is still active. Having said that, no reputable law firm can guarantee an identical result.
National Collegiate has been very aggressive in filing these cases. They have been able to produce various loan documents for many of our clients, including signed applications and partial payment histories. Fortunately, we have been able to defend the cases with great success based upon our knowledge of the law and the hurdles that they face when trying to collect on these student loan accounts. We also have found that many of these claims are time barred, that is, they are filed beyond the applicable statute of limitations as mentioned above.
Our firm has a great deal of experience in defending student loan collection cases. If you have been sued in any Pennsylvania county by National Collegiate Student Loan Trust or another collection agency, our firm can help you defend this claim at minimal cost, with a great chance at success. Contact our office here, call me at 412-348-8600.
