TERI PRIVATE STUDENT LOAN JUDGMENT

The Education Resources Institute (TERI) was one of the largest provider of private student loans in the country for over the last 15 years. Although that has changed because of TERI filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, they still hold a large deal of defaulted student loans and pursue consumers on these student loans by means of collection, lawsuit and judgment enforcement. Our client had a default judgment entered against him for about $22,000 in 2006. He was never served with notice of the lawsuit which is common in New York and TERI was able to obtain a default judgment against him. That judgment accrued interest at 9% annually and grew to over $46,000 when he retained us last year. Guy Mitchell Lewitt, a New York debt collection law firm was retained by TERI to enforce and collect the judgment. They generally are able to enforce on these judgments by means of bank levy, and wage garnishment.

We reached out to Guy Mitchell Lewitt’s office serving them with our Order to Show Cause to vacate the judgment against our client based on improper service. We also included a motion for dismissal based on our belief that TERI lacked the legal standing to prove their case in court. TERI immediately agreed to voluntarily vacate the judgment against our client and offered to settle out of court for $12,000 over an interest free payment plan. This saved our client over 74% off of the debt and prevented him from incurring further litigation fees and risk.