I live abroad & due to circumstances beyond my control I had to default on the remainder of my private student loan. To be clear, I asked for multiple alternatives & the best that they were able to do at the time was defer payments for 3 months, which they then added onto my debt. After a while it came pay rent or pay the debt, so with some advice from many people & other expats, I defaulted.

It has been less than a year since the defaulting & it moved to a collections agency who have been hounding my family. Finally, I was served with papers saying they were suing.

I tried calling the listed attorney first to try to negotiate, but was only allowed to speak with their collections department. They told me they could do 75%, I refused, then quickly went to 50% but wouldn’t budge after that. They told me that they “cannot give a proposal lower than 75%” to the client, but at some point also said it about 50%.

I never explicitly admitted it was my debt over the phone (looked up negotiations advice) & only said I wanted to resolve the matter & see what they could offer. I explained I absolutely cannot do 50% & would be open to do lower with the client. They refused, told me they can’t do anything, & to go to the courts, then hung up.

I’m now looking at hiring a lawyer. I truly cannot do 50% right now, I was hoping for 30% which was more reasonable, as I’m about to have a child & some other things came up that would just really put my family into an absolutely terrible situation.

Is there anything I can do?