A few months after he buried his son, Francisco Reynoso began getting
notices in the mail. Then the debt collectors came calling.
"They would say, 'We don't care what happened with your son, you have
to pay us,'" recalled Reynoso, a gardener from Palmdale, Calif.
Reynoso's son, Freddy, had been the pride of his family and the first to go to college. In 2005, after Freddy was
accepted to Boston's Berklee College of Music, his father co-signed on his hefty private student loans, making him
fully liable should Freddy be unwilling or unable to repay them. It was no small decision for a man who made just
over $21,000 in 2011, according to his tax returns.
"As a father, you'll do anything for your child," Reynoso, an American citizen originally from Mexico, said through a
translator.
Now, he's suffering a Kafkaesque ordeal in which he's hounded to repay loans that funded an education his son will
never get to use — loans that he has little hope of ever paying off. While Reynoso's wife, Sylvia, is studying to be a
beautician, his gardening is currently the sole source of income for the family, which includes his 18-year-old
daughter Evelyn.
And the loans are maddeningly opaque. Despite the help of a lawyer, Reynoso has not been able to determine
exactly how much he owes, or even what company holds his loans. Just as happened with home mortgages in the
boom years before the 2008 financial crash, his son's student loans have been sold and resold, and at least one was
likely bundled into a complex Wall Street security. But the trail of those transactions ends at a wall of corporate
silence from companies that include two household names: banking giant UBS and Xerox, which owns the loan
servicer handling the bulk of his loans. Left without answers is a bereaved father.
The risk of cosigning on Freddy's loans seemed to have been worth it when he graduated in May 2008 and began
looking for a job in the music industry. He was on the way back from a job interview on the evening of Sept. 4 when
he lost control of his car and it rolled over. Freddy's family learned of his death the next morning.
I have heard that story and I all I can say is that it’s awful. It’s absolutely not right that father should pay for college degree his son will never be able to use. There should be understand from the lenders’ side, because such situation may happen to other. I understand that student loan industry is just a business but there should be a place for understanding. This man doesn’t make lots of money, furthermore his income is quite small and probably he lives through loans without credit checks so it’s impossible for him to repay his son’s debt. I hope that there’s a solution for this complicated situation and some one will help to fix it.
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