Information helps borrowers settle past-due accounts and loan defaults
USA Funds offers new Web tools to resolve student-loan-payment problems
INDIANAPOLIS — USA Funds®, the nation's leading education-loan guarantor, has announced new features on its Web site — www.usafunds.org — to help education-loan borrowers who are experiencing loan-payment problems. The new features permit borrowers whose payments on USA Funds-guaranteed loans are more than 60 days past due or whose loans are in default to view their personal account information online in a secure environment. In addition, the USA Funds Web site has been enhanced with information to help these borrowers resolve their payment problems.
"Preventing education-loan defaults and assisting borrowers who are in default are key elements of USA Funds' nonprofit mission," said Carl C. Dalstrom, USA Funds president and CEO. "These additions to the USA Funds Web site further enhance our expansive efforts to help borrowers resolve their payment problems and restore their good credit."
USA Funds recently announced that its draft 2001 cohort default rate projects a 25-percent year-to-year decline to less than 4.6 percent of borrowers who entered repayment during fiscal 2001. In addition, during the last three years, USA Funds has recovered more than $1 billion annually on loan defaults.
The new Web features provide the following benefits:
- Offer borrowers convenient, online access — available 24 hours a day, seven days a week — to their personal account information and solutions to their payment problems.
- Help borrowers expedite the resolution of their payment problems and thereby avoid additional costs.
- Reinforce the information and advice provided to borrowers by default-prevention and default-recovery staff members who work on behalf of USA Funds.
Borrowers whose payments have been reported by lenders to USA Funds as being 60 days or more past due can review their outstanding loan balance, the number of days that their account is in arrears, and locate contact information for their lenders and loan servicers. These borrowers also are offered an array of options for resolving their payment problems.
Borrowers in default on a USA Funds-guaranteed loan can view payoff amounts, daily interest accrual, past payment information and contacts for assistance. The Web site also provides details about the options for resolving loan defaults, as well as information on the impact of default on personal credit reports and the possible interception of borrowers' federal or state tax refunds or other benefit payments.
The Web features were developed with the advice of borrowers whose student-loan payments are past due, whose loans are in default, or who have resolved loan defaults.
Borrowers may access the new Web features by selecting "Loan-Payment Problems" from the "Express Links" menu on the home page of the USA Funds Web site.