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.