College: The Biggest Financial Mistake Ever

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subigo

subigo

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After a wonderful morning of frozen bank accounts, courtesy of the IRS, I feel the need to rant.

A few years ago, 2004 to be exact, I enrolled in college. I was 24 years old and had been working tech support jobs since high-school. My family and friends urged me to go to college, I didn't have a major in mind, but I could figure that out later.

After about two years of school and three major changes, I decided that perhaps I should take a break from school (and student loans), until I could figure out what I really wanted to do. So a week after registering for Spring classes, I dropped them.

Fast forward six months later, when I received my grades for a full semester of classes. Of course I called immediately to tell them it was a mistake. I hadn't gone to classes that semester, I had dropped them all.

Perhaps it was the 20 year old office assistant who fucked up. Maybe it was my incompetent adviser? However, one thing is certain... someone idiot lost my paperwork and failed to officially drop my classes. Then again, it could be my fault for not asking for a copy. I'll never know.

Needless to say, my $4,000 student loan had been sent to the school and used to pay for those classes. It had not been returned as I was told by my adviser.

Just when things couldn't get any worse, I received a letter from the school saying I could no longer get financial aid, because my GPA had dropped below a 2.0 (thanks to a full semester of unattended classes). So not only was my GPA screwed, but I couldn't go back to school in the fall.

I spent the next year working shitty jobs and talking to lawyers. Finally, about a year ago, we went to court. I was fairly sure the judge would rule in my favor... but you know what they say happens when you assume. I lost. The judge said it was my word against theirs and I now owed $6,000+... the loan, plus late fees, plus court costs.

After 90 days of not paying them back, due to my shitty pay and shitty job, they started to garnish my wages. Lucky for me, the company I worked for went out of business and I took that as a sign to start working for myself.

So from last fall up until now, I've been working for myself. Those bitches can't garnish money coming straight to me. However, I was sure that my 2007 tax return would be going straight to them... and I was right.

Today, Feb. 15th, was the day I was supposed to find out if I would get a refund or if it would go straight to the school... and then...

I woke up this morning to find that my checking account had been frozen and emptied. At first I thought someone had stolen my debit card or something, but a quick call to the bank allowed me to realize that the IRS had decided that they would help themselves to the money in my checking account (about $4,000).

When I filed my taxes I used e-file and gave taxslayer.com my checking account information... just in case I actually received my refund. Is it just a coincidence that the checking account I used for taxslayer.com was the only one of my accounts to be robbed/frozen? Who knows?

Anyway, I'm not saying that going to college means the IRS will rob your ass... but in my particular circumstance, it did.

The moral of the story? Don't fucking go to college unless you know exactly what you are going for. That and always keep good records of everything...

Now if you'll excuse me while I go figure out how to make back that $4k and throw up a little.

/rant.
 


The IRS will levi your account as a last resort only. And if you don't respond.

Did you ignore their letters?

Also, the IRS knows whats in your bank account. They most likely levi'd whichever one had the most money.
 
BigWill said:
The IRS will levi your account as a last resort only. And if you don't respond.

Did you ignore their letters?

Also, the IRS knows whats in your bank account. They most likely levi'd whichever one had the most money.
Click to expand...

I never once received a letter from the IRS or the school. The last correspondence I had from anyone, was from the school back in November. It was a bill.

The IRS doesn't have to send a letter. Their offset division can take without warning.
 
damn that is rough. I do admit that I could be more productive by not going to school. It just seems like a goods idea to just get a degree.
 
Your opportunity to resolve it was when your previous employer was told to garnish your wages. At that point, you probably could have called the IRS and setup a payment plan to pay it off.

There is a small group of people out there who make a living by scanning court judgements, finding balances due, tracking you and your bank account down, monitoring it for sufficent funds and then calling the Marshall's office to have it levied.
 
audax said:
Your opportunity to resolve it was when your previous employer was told to garnish your wages. At that point, you probably could have called the IRS and setup a payment plan to pay it off.

There is a small group of people out there who make a living by scanning court judgements, finding balances due, tracking you and your bank account down, monitoring it for sufficent funds and then calling the Marshall's office to have it levied.
Click to expand...

Until today, the IRS had nothing to do with this whole thing at all. Everything was being handled through the school (who won the court case). The school, for whatever reason, refused to give me any kind of payment plan. Which made no sense, because they were perfectly fine taking small chunks from my paycheck.

When the company I worked for went out of business and they could no longer garnish my wages, the school told me I had to pay half within 30 days and the other half within 90. That's not a payment plan. That's getting fucked in the ass for something I shouldn't have to pay for in the first place.

Anyway, because the student loan was from a University and officially a federal loan, these fuckers were notified to withhold my tax return. The raping of my checking account was the real surprise. I'm still trying to figure out how/why that happened.
 
That's fucked they actually pulled the money out of your account w/o so much as a letter or phone call. I thought when a bank account was frozen, it's just a last resort attempt to get you to pay... like a scare tactic. It was my understanding that once a payment plan was set up, they would unfreeze your account and you would have access to your funds again. Then again, this is the IRS and by law, they don't have to notify you.

Anyway, I feel your pain because my tax returns every year went straight to my student loans too. Now that I am self employed, I will end up owing money so I'm not sure how they'll deal with it.

Either way, I don't trust banks in general. From now on, I'm sure you'll be keeping more of your hard earned cash in your home where greedy laws can't touch it. If they don't know about it, it doesn't exist. ;)
 
Degrees are overrated unless your are going to become something like a doctor or the likes, i know many uni graduates and they are all on shit money, i know one guy who did ten years of college and uni and he is now in the job he went to University for, the thing is his 18 year old cousin earns more stacking shelves at night in a supermarket.

I know another guy with a degree who cannot spell four letter words, he is not dyslexic just thick, he scraped through it and got a job out of it but he has to work hard at it

I know a girl who did the full degree to be a lawyer she is now in a job as a bank manager she says it is the best she could get...great.

Degrees were cool in the 80's but it aint the 80's no more, you do not need a degree to get rich just a brain and motivation to make it.

Look at Andrew Carnegie, Richard Branson and the hundreds of others who did it.

If you do a degree make sure its gonna pay when you finish it, if not just do a basic college course and be a welder or some other trade and you will make enough.

Or work for yourself.....

Either way it sucks what has happened to you, good luck.
 
Yes, it took me about 8 years to get out of debt, and then I ended up making my living on something completely unrelated to what I did in college.
 
never pull out student loans unless you have too, financial aid and scholarships are the way to go.

And I am actually surprised the IRS decided to take your money right away considering any money owed to the IRS is just like a loan and it has interest on it. So your lucky they pulled the money out now instead of 20 years down the line when you owed like 20,000$ instead of 6,000. The IRS doesn't Fk around you gotta clear that shit up, and don't be stupid and try to hide from them, they will hunt you down. If you know theres a problem call them and fix it, they will gladly work with you with some sort payment plan.

Also since you are working for yourself your taxes just got a lot higher to pay so make sure you get your shit together because tax evasion is huge and prison time is a reality. The government is fucked up, but then again they need the money to feed mr. bush.
 
The Irs didnt do this to your account, heres who fucked you up.

Okay let me try to shed some light here, check this website out here.
hxxp://www.recoverycourse.com

They are called judgement recovery specialists. Think private investigators but they can use a judment against you to get a lien on anything that you own. From bank accounts, garnish your wages and all they need is a fucking work order. Your failiure to pay your school fees led to a collection account being opened against you. Somehow some fucking collection agency got a hold of a bunch of accounts including yours. Now to actually get an account and get one with money sitting in the bank happens only once in a while. They get paid nearly half of what you owe the school since the account was deliquent for more than one year. So basically this bitch got away with half your money and gave your school the rest. You are welcome to test this out, go to some local credit union or something along that line and try to open a bank account.
I would think you would be able to, but if you have anything like 300 bucks in there and you still owe more money that money would vanish. Until your debt is paid off. You can find their adress anywhere cause i know you would love to shove a big fucking shotgun in their fucking face and gently squeeze the trigger. :)
ANyway bro , just hang in there and get ready to work on more press releases you should have that money back in no time especially since the good forces of nature tell us you are a talented writer. :) All the best


subigo said:
After a wonderful morning of frozen bank accounts, courtesy of the IRS, I feel the need to rant.

A few years ago, 2004 to be exact, I enrolled in college. I was 24 years old and had been working tech support jobs since high-school. My family and friends urged me to go to college, I didn't have a major in mind, but I could figure that out later.

After about two years of school and three major changes, I decided that perhaps I should take a break from school (and student loans), until I could figure out what I really wanted to do. So a week after registering for Spring classes, I dropped them.

Fast forward six months later, when I received my grades for a full semester of classes. Of course I called immediately to tell them it was a mistake. I hadn't gone to classes that semester, I had dropped them all.

Perhaps it was the 20 year old office assistant who fucked up. Maybe it was my incompetent adviser? However, one thing is certain... someone idiot lost my paperwork and failed to officially drop my classes. Then again, it could be my fault for not asking for a copy. I'll never know.

Needless to say, my $4,000 student loan had been sent to the school and used to pay for those classes. It had not been returned as I was told by my adviser.

Just when things couldn't get any worse, I received a letter from the school saying I could no longer get financial aid, because my GPA had dropped below a 2.0 (thanks to a full semester of unattended classes). So not only was my GPA screwed, but I couldn't go back to school in the fall.

I spent the next year working shitty jobs and talking to lawyers. Finally, about a year ago, we went to court. I was fairly sure the judge would rule in my favor... but you know what they say happens when you assume. I lost. The judge said it was my word against theirs and I now owed $6,000+... the loan, plus late fees, plus court costs.

After 90 days of not paying them back, due to my shitty pay and shitty job, they started to garnish my wages. Lucky for me, the company I worked for went out of business and I took that as a sign to start working for myself.

So from last fall up until now, I've been working for myself. Those bitches can't garnish money coming straight to me. However, I was sure that my 2007 tax return would be going straight to them... and I was right.

Today, Feb. 15th, was the day I was supposed to find out if I would get a refund or if it would go straight to the school... and then...

I woke up this morning to find that my checking account had been frozen and emptied. At first I thought someone had stolen my debit card or something, but a quick call to the bank allowed me to realize that the IRS had decided that they would help themselves to the money in my checking account (about $4,000).

When I filed my taxes I used e-file and gave taxslayer.com my checking account information... just in case I actually received my refund. Is it just a coincidence that the checking account I used for taxslayer.com was the only one of my accounts to be robbed/frozen? Who knows?

Anyway, I'm not saying that going to college means the IRS will rob your ass... but in my particular circumstance, it did.

The moral of the story? Don't fucking go to college unless you know exactly what you are going for. That and always keep good records of everything...

Now if you'll excuse me while I go figure out how to make back that $4k and throw up a little.

/rant.
Click to expand...
 
Were you told specifically that it was the IRS? because something is not matching up here, IRS does not collect money for Universities, I think you're dealing with two separate issues here
 
That's messed up your school wouldn't give you any grace on that enrollment mistake. I once enrolled in a "Winter Intersession" course that met over winter break thinking it was for the normal Winter term and found out I flunked it when I got back from visiting home. I submitted a plea and they changed the F to a W and didn't charge me for the course. And my administration was fucking terrible when it came to not budging from bureaucratic policies and the like.

I have yet to see whether college will have been worth it for me. Right now, with ~40k in student loans, I'm thinking no. I majored in a degree with good earning potential (Finance)... but I am far more interested in this IM shit than being a cubicle dwelling number cruncher analyst for 60 hours a week.
 
It's funny how the people that say college is useless didn't go to college. It may seem like a good idea in retrospect, once you see these people with billions of dollars who didn't go to college. But then look at all the people with billions of dollars that DID go to college. The google guys, the CEO of almost any fortune 500 company. You'll find that the majority of successful people in this world went to college. If you want to succeed, the biggest mistake you can make is not taking your education seriously. Maybe you weren't lucky enough to go to elite prep schools, harvard, and straight into Wall Street, but any college education is of huge value. It's not about the degree. It's about what you learn, the connections you make, the life lessons you're taught, and of course all the drinking you do.

Don't undervalue college. If you can afford it, it's the best thing you can do.
 
chatmasta said:
It's funny how the people that say college is useless didn't go to college. It may seem like a good idea in retrospect, once you see these people with billions of dollars who didn't go to college. But then look at all the people with billions of dollars that DID go to college. The google guys, the CEO of almost any fortune 500 company. You'll find that the majority of successful people in this world went to college. If you want to succeed, the biggest mistake you can make is not taking your education seriously. Maybe you weren't lucky enough to go to elite prep schools, harvard, and straight into Wall Street, but any college education is of huge value. It's not about the degree. It's about what you learn, the connections you make, the life lessons you're taught, and of course all the drinking you do.

Don't undervalue college. If you can afford it, it's the best thing you can do.
Click to expand...
If you have a good work ethic and teach yourself, you absolutely do NOT need college. Some people do not need their hand held to get gain an education. The majority do. The majority also NEED an employer . I give credit to the minority that are successes without College and without a boss.
 
Going at big investors without a college degree is a big gamble. I just learned this last year when my partner and I tried to raise angel funds for our startup. We had an excellent business plan, a very rough prototype, and my partner is already a CEO of another organization. However, I was one of the principles (CTO), and as such my credentials were up for scrutiny. The investors looked at my background, and said it looked good, but they really grimaced when they asked where I got my degree from...

I'd taken lots of classes, but never actually got all the ducks in a row to get the piece of paper. The angels wouldn't admit it of course, but I could tell that my lack of degree was a red flag for them. I'm not saying it's fair, but I understand that they want to see some sort of certification that states "this guy knows something about businesses". Cest la vie.

To the OP... Sounds like a crappy deal, but frankly if you do anything within a bureaucracy, get a copy for yourself. Not getting a copy of your drop paperwork is your responsibility, and if you'd had done that you probably would be A-OK right now. Sorry that everyone seems to be fucking you, and I hope it works out for you in the end...
 
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