Graduated 3 years ago meme degree

which degree?

The rehabilitation program is easy. All you need is your last two paystubs and an approximate dollar amount of your monthly expenses. They wont even ask for receipts or any proof of your cost of living so you can exaggerate a little and qualify for the minimum payment which is $5 a month per loan.
Do that for 5 months and the garnishment stops. Four more months and you're back in good standing. Nine months total and you're back to normal.

That’s kind of a relief. I should do it this week.

I think DOE is starting to push harder. Like the news that they’re gonna stop offering public service forgiveness in most cases.

I just got the tax refund garnishment notice a couple weeks ago. The silly thing is I didn’t earn a penny last year... and truth be told... I haven’t even filed. This last couple years has been fucked.

Debtors would always rather get something out of you than get nothing out of you. Ring them up, explain to them how fucking dirt poor you are, and then offer to pay them a token amount. Ask them what the minimum possible repayment is, and then negotiate down; just keep on insisting that you can't reasonably afford that much without falling into hardship. They'll eventually accept tiny amounts like $5 a week just to keep you on the books. Whenever they ring to negotiate keep telling them you can't afford it.

That's really weird. I don't know how it works at this point. I've never heard of anybody going to court over federal loans. They usually just go straight to garnishing your paycheck. I was still able to get my default status forgiven after getting my checks garnished so I assume you still should be able to also.

No. Dont do this. It's for federal loans, you can skip the negotiating process.
If it was private loans, you tell debtors "it is inconvenient for you to contact me by phone", then you send them a cease and desist letter. Then you wait for them to sell it to the next debt collector, and you repeat the process until the statute of limitations is up.
Do not deal with debt collectors.

Well technically speaking garnishment is a legal proceeding, though I imagine the way it’s structured has the determination being made without needing a hearing if you don’t challenge it by a certain date.

As to an actual lawsuit, you’re right that would be quite unusual. I would imagine only in the case where the debtor has some assets he’s sitting on and refusing to liquidate to pay off his defaulted loan would you go for that. Otherwise, what’s the point? Their litigation department only has so much in funding a year. There’s no reason to get a judgment unless you know the guy has assets he’s concealing, since the loans aren’t practically dischargable in bankruptcy anyway.

If this guy got an actual litigation notice, that is, he’s not just panic-reading a nasty letter and mistakenly believing he’s being sued, his best option is to show he’s got no money and no way to repay, and they OUGHT to settle. That said, settling with the Feds is complicated and should be done through a lawyer.

Yeah with private loans you can really game it. The key is that you need to expressly demand they stop contacting you. If they don’t, and they’re an actual debt collector (as opposed to the creditor trying to collect his own debt), you can get statutory damages out of them, though it’s usually a small amount; more often, I think, FDCPA violations are the subject of class action lawsuits.

The shit part is your credit score can still get fucked.

Yea you're right it does come with a price. For me it came down to a value judgement. My loans were already defaulted, so my credit was already fucked. I owed 38K in private loans. Two choices; Have shitty credit for about seven years and not pay 38K, or have slightly less shitty credit and 38K in debt.

Yea that's how it worked for me and everyone else I know of this happening to
They send a letter telling you that you're about to have your wages garnished. You can either dispute it 30 days from that letters post marked date, or let them garnish your wages. I've never heard of anybody going to court over it.

OP here, just to update

I just called and they confirmed the payment owed and stuff. I said I could offer $100 a month and they said they would call me back within 2-3 days to confirm and stuff. But it sounds hopeful to me, cause that’s all I can afford rn. Like maybe 200. And I just signed up for Uber, wouldn’t mind doing that a few hours a week to pay off loans. I knew this was coming, I was just hoping for a managerial spot beforehand.