Ten months ago, I came into both a verbal and written agreement with Diversified Collection Services. The agreement was for me to enter a Student Loan Rehabilitation process that required that I make 9 voluntary full payments within 20 days of the due date during 10 consecutive months. After that, a new repayment schedule would be established by the lender after rehabilitation. Additionally, major credit bureaus would be notified to delete any adverse credit rating currently being reported by the guaranty agency in relation to the default. In all, the contract stresses that I must make 9 consecutive on time monthly payments, and continue to make payments to the firm until the loan is rehabilitated. (I've read the contract thoroughly and there is no fine print. The 9 months payment is exactly what's written out on the contract.)

Ten months later, I've made all of my 9 payments on time and as agreed upon. However, last month, DCS went ahead and withdrew a 10th payment from my account. When I called them, my customer service rep. Carrie Drew gave me some vague excuse that DCS had tried to reach me, but was unable to, which was a lie, since I had spoken to them, and nothing about a tenth payment was said to me. She then transferred me over to their complaints department. The complaints person, Rosie Collins, told me the opposite of what Carrie had stated. That it wasn't because they could not reach me that the 10th payment was taken, that it was because they could not reach the lender. I was flabbergasted, how is it possible that they were only trying to reach the lender after ten months? Why wasn't the lender contacted throughout my nine months of payment? And if they hadn't been able to reach the lender, that it wasn't my fault since my part of the agreement was to come up with the payment, while they were supposed to orchestrate the rehabilitation. The complaints person, then said that there was nothing that they could do to expedite the process (although it would not have needed expediting if it had been done on time), but that she would submit a client inquiry.

It's been several days now, and Rosie Collins, whom had supposedly submitted a client inquiry (asking the lender about the status of my account), which should have taken (according to her) 24 hours, still has no answer for me. I've called her everyday since I made the complaint, and DCS has not made any progress in the rehabilitation process. I had all of my good intentions of working with DCS and the lender to repay my loan, but upon seeing how they are stalling with the process, I seriously suspect that they are stalling the rehabilitation process so that they can keep collecting contingent fees off my loan. For every payment that I've made, they've applied less than 50 of my payment towards my balance.

I really need some sound advice on what actions I can take as soon as possible. I've already alerted them that I will be pursuing this matter, and have told them that I will close my bank account to prevent them from obtaining any more payments until they honor their end of the contract and rehabilitate my loan. I do not want them to use this as an excuse to bring my account back to default. So far, I've filed a complaint with the BBB, and filed a rip-off report. But since they have blatantly dishonored my contract, I feel that I could be doing a lot more. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. I'd like to retrieve the 10th payment taken from my bank account so that I can pay the lender rather than the collection agency, and I really want them to complete my loan rehabilitation with the lender. Thank you for your help.

FF