866-633-7945

This company is legit....they took 554.27 from my Federal Income Tax Return before it was deposited into my checking account. So, please anyone who thinks they are bogus....they are not. I received a Letter from Department of the Treasury, Federal Offset Unit stating the amount my refund was offset and it was collected by an agency (ConServe 1-866-633-7945) contracted by the US Department of Education. I had no prior telephone calls or mailings as I would have made the payment and cleared this up before it got to this point. So just giving everyone a heads up that thinks this is a scam and a joke.

I think they may be legit because I'm a very off the radar person. I dont even have facebook. I'm also homeless (for over 2 yrs) but last year  got a job getting 300 bi weekly and am curious as to how they got my number. I have no contact with family members and 1 friend who I've stayed in contact with and don't have my number listed anywhere accept for my resume. If they found me based on SSN (which original creditor would have) why would they bother calling me since my current income is hardly enough to pay back any loan. I've been choosing food and bathing over paying back a loan for an education that has gotten me no where. Answers to how they got my number would be appreciated.

This has been the line they use when they call my place of work, demanding to get the Human Resources number.  I have never had a student loan and I have no idea why they keep calling and want to get some kind of personal information from me.  I would very much like to know how to report these scammers who are obviously LIARS.

I was also born in 1974.  I have no student loans.  I have debt but it is all paid up.  No idea why these people are calling me.  It started from a different company and I blocked their number.  Now it is coming from this company.  I learned on another list that if there is someone with a name like yours that has defaulted, they get lists of similar number and start randomly hounding them!!!!!

Apparently, they are a legit company, ConServe, a student loan collection agency.  I did a little research and they are even referenced in a NY Times article (just Google "conserve student loan collection agency," they also have a website). They called me and left a message at my work (no idea how they got my work number), it turns out they had me as the wrong person.  I have never had student loans and am debt free.  I felt weird agreeing to my personal info over the phone, and am still hoping it was the genuine company and not a scam, but they compared my info to what they had in their system, saw it was wrong and fixed it.  It's easy to ignore a mysterious call on my cellphone, but when they reach me at work, then things get personal.  So do a little research on the exact number they are calling from to make sure it's not an impersonator and take the call: who knows, maybe they just made a mistake.

Yup, you guessed it. If my name didn't give it away, I'm not afraid to come out and admit I am employed with Conserve on the ED contract. I'll do my best to clear up some of the information here.

To reply directly to "Don'tBelieveTheirLies":

"1.)  The DoE has a mnimum amount it will accept.  LIE --- there is no minimum payment."

      -There IS a minimum payment amount for all Rehabilitation Programs. If you do not make a qualifying payment, you will not be in a Rehab & get OUT of default. HOWEVER!!! If your current financial situation leaves you unable to pay the Standard amount, you may be offered the Reasonable and Affordable. But KEEP IN MIND: Unless you're actually living and surviving around the poverty level, you probably AREN'T going to qualify for a poverty-level payment.


"2.)  Reasonable and Affordable is based on how much you owe.  LIE, reasonable is partially based on the amount you owe, but affordability is based entirely on circumstance such as your income, obligations, etc..."

       -Incorrect. If someone told you the RNA was based on how much you owe, someone lied to you. It is based on you Income, Family Size, and a few other factors determined by the Department of Education. If you qualify, your qualifying rehabilitation payment may drop significantly.


"3.) Government program waives the fees etc...LIE the fees are simply tacked on by the Agency, DoE has no role in their supposed forgiveness."

    -Incorrect. The Department of Education WILL waive any REMAINING collection costs and penalty fees at the end of the rehabilitation period. ED will also remove the Default from your Credit Report if it's been reported after you rehabilitate your loans.


"4.)  There is a "time limit" on these programs. LIE --- there is no time limit on when you can use your guaranteed statutory rights to rehabilitate a defaulted loan."

     -Sort of. You can only rehabilitate your loans one time. If your employment has been verified, you are also limited on time before you can be referred for Administrative Wage Garnishment. Or, if your account has been initiated for AWG, you are extremely limited on time before the Garnishment Order is sent. The "time limit" you're probably referring to is when a temporary 'hold' is placed on an account. Ie. No calls will be made to give you time to sort through your financials to get a payment together. Also, a Rehabilitation is NOT a right to a borrower in default. It is a courtesy, as technically, according to the legal and binding contract you signed to borrow your loans (aka: promissory note), the amount you borrowed is due /immediately/ and /in full/. Anything other than that is a courtesy.


"1.)  The "plan" requires 10 consecutive months of full payment.  LIE --- the statute requires 9 months of payments in a 10 month period.  They will never tell you this."

     - We are required to tell a borrower that a Rehabilitation is 9 payments over a 10 month period. If a collector told you otherwise they were wrong. We put 10 payments on file because there is generally a stasis period of 60 days between your loan finishing with a Rehabilitation and getting transferred by ED to the new service provider. During that time, if payments cease, your loan may drop out of the rehabilitation and you may have to start the program over, which we don't want.


"2.)  Consolidating or Reconsolidating is a bad idea because it will have to roll in their fees.  LIE --- this is the biggest load of crap out there.  Their worst fear is that you consolidate your way out of default.  Then they don't get their commissions...boohoo"

      - Incorrect. You can only consolidate your loans once. If you have previously consolidated, ED will not allow us to consolidate them again. Consolidation is a good idea at certain times. If you've already Rehabilitated, it can get you out of Default, as once you Consolidate it will technically be a 'new' loan. Consolidation will NOT waive the collection costs and fees accrued on your loans, however. They will be wrapped up, along with principal and interest, into one new loan. And as a note, we do receive commission on consolidations, as well.


Response to "Lelia":

"Best thing to do with a collection agent is to not empower them with any info! Most of the time their info is incorrect and the amount owed is wrong. If you do owe get a lawyer that is experienced in defaulted loans and go from there. If they ask for your lawyer's name DO NOT GIVE IT, inform your lawyer of them and there collection effort and be done with it. Oh and by the way the discounted offer they offer is not real and you can do better obtaining a discount if you go through legal channels. Most of time the amount owed has been signed off and the originator of the loan would be more than happy to accept a half or in some cases less than 30% of the original loan."

     - While that can be true with things like Credit Card debt and other types of collection accounts, that is not the case for Federal Debt. As the originator is a branch of the government, the lowest settlement offer you will ever receive is 90% Principle and 90% Interest, with a waive of the collection costs & penalty fees for going into default. If you have a Lawyer, we will ONLY contact your Lawyer. However, in order for that we have to have a way to contact them. I've been told I have to have the Lawyer's name, firm, address, and phone number. Afterwards, there should be absolutely no contact with the borrower, only the Lawyer.


And in general, if you are a third party being harassed, please tell the collector. Most of the time we have dozens of numbers per account that have no name other than being attached to an account. If the number is wrong, it's supposed to be marked as such. However, if you don't pick up the phone and say it's a wrong number... well, we aren't psychic, sadly. Telling the collector not to call your number again will typically stop calls.


But mostly it's important to remember that collectors are people, too. It's a hard job, especially when you get cussed out or have people verbally rip you apart for trying to help people get out of Default and out of collections. You really have to develop thick skin, and unfortunately some collectors deal with it by dehumanizing borrowers in order to make it through their own day. I'd like to think I'm not one of those collectors, though. I genuinely love working where I do. Helping people get out of default, helping them get their finances in order- it makes me happy. Some days are hard, where I cold call accounts for nine hours straight without a single borrower contact, but some days are extremely rewarding, when I can help someone like a single mother of three get out of default for $5 a month. That's the kind of thing I enjoy about my job.

Hopefully this answered some questions (and hopefully I won't get in trouble at work for this, haha).

Weird, they don't collect for the DOE. The DOE is the department of energy [***]

I can verify this information.  We recently set up rehabilitation for my husband's defaulted federal student loans with another company (not ConServe) the Department of Education sends your defaulted loan to collectors and then you have to work with the collectors directly no matter what.  I got a letter from the DOE saying they were going to send my husband's loan to collection unless I worked something out with them, I called and spoke to someone and she told me I could keep his loan out of collection if I did basically what the rehabilitation program was and she was going to send me the paperwork.  The thing is, she failed to tell me that in order to keep it from going to collections I needed to make a payment on the phone (any payment) and I got the paperwork she sent me at the same time (within a day) or getting calls from a collection agency.  When I tried to work everything out with the DOE I was informed that the new collection company was handling everything now so I had to deal with them

We set up rehabilitation on my husband's student loans and worked something out on mine (which also defaulted at the same time - we had a really rough patch for awhile and paying student loans was the least of our worries).  Since the reasonable and affordable plan was $500/month for my husband and I'm unemployed, they wanted $500/month from my loan as well (because it's based on income and expenses and they don't care if you're paying $500 on another loan - the guy I worked with was a total a$$).  We simply can't do that, but I agreed to pay $50/month on mine until I found work and we've been doing that for months now.  Unlike a lot of people out there, I DO want to get my student loans rehabilitated, I just can't afford to pay the DOE $1000/month between the two of us - not until I can find work, which is proving to be extremely difficult because I have a child and need work to balance around that (we have no family or friends nearby).

Someone told me that by paying the $50/month on mine it would keep my loan from further default and keep me out of court.  I hope that's true, worst case scenario is that we keep paying the $50/month for the remaining 4 months of my husband's rehabilitation period and then when we can work his payment out to be smaller through the DOE we can start rehabilitating mine.  I just need to keep them at bay for a few months while I try to find work.  My husband makes a good salary but we are also laden in debt, we're doing what we can to move forward and pay back what we owe, but rough times really screwed us up and we never considered bankruptcy (which would have been smart, looking back on it).  I'm just hoping that by paying my $50/month it'll keep me out of court, I'm trying here - really I am, but I just can not pay $500 on my husband's rehabilitation program and $500 on mine (because they base it off my husband's income) plus all our other debt AND keep a roof over our heads.  I don't think they can garnish my husband's wages for MY student loan, but I really don't want a judgement against me when I am so close to being able to work this out.  

BUT - the company we worked out rehabilitation with for my husband is different than the company who held my student loan, so I'm working with 2 different collection agencies for the DOE (Van Ru and Progressive) and today I got a call from ConServe from someone asking for my husband.  She wouldn't give me any information and just hung up when I said he wasn't home, but I don't know why this company would be calling when we have already worked out a rehabilitation plan with Van Ru.  The thing is, if she refuses to talk to me nothing will happen - my husband has avoidance issues and will ignore it and hope it goes away, *I* need to handle it, and I thought I did, until this morning when ConServe called me asking for my husband.

So - just deal with it people.  It's a federal student loan, they're going to come after you and most of you owe it.  Work out rehabilitation and then move forward from there, otherwise you'll end up with a judgement against you for much more than you owe the DOE and it'll make your life hell for a long time.

Yeah they called looking for an old co-worker of mine. Even said they worked for the company we used to work for. They didn't like it when i called back and asked if it was said company, and then accused them of being liars and I wouldn't help them find said friend. :)

Ok so here REALLY goes....

Conserve will scam you.  They have no authority to negotiate on your debt, any money you give them will be wasted.

If you wish to make arrangements on your debt, deal with the Dept Of Education directly.  

Conserve is so unethical that they post lies like the following:  "Buuuutttt your business, your home, your cars, your savings accounts are ALL PERSONAL ASSETS THAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN AND WILL SUE YOU FOR!!!"  and lie about the extent to which wages are subject to garnishments.  They know that debtors have protections under federal law, they just don't want YOU to know that.

Why are they lying and trying to scare you?  Because that is all that Conserve can do, huff & puff, call & hang up, lie on forums like this one...

sounds like another fake post from the Conserve flunkey!

Change your federal withholding deductions on your w4so that, at tax time, the government doesn't owe you a refund.

This is a good idea no matter what your debt load; why loan the $ to the government, especially if they might hold it?

You should also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission

Deej--sorry that they lied to you about what was owed.

This is why people should NEVER NEGOTIATE WITH CONSERVE, deal directly with the Dept of Education.  They are the only ones who can approve settlement, not Conserve.

more lies from Conserve....

Conserve cannot garnish.  The Department of Ed can, but it usually doesn't net them much.

"the government will deduct 15-25% from EVERY paycheck"--more lies.
A large chunk (usually thirty times the min wage) is completely exempt.  After the exempt amount and after taxes (net), it is limited to a percentage of disposable income.

Tax offsets?  Change the deductions on your W4; claim all that legally apply; you may owe a little in tax at the end of they year, but there will be no "refund" to be seized.

Nope, they're just calling all the Pat Does they can find.

Then they wonder why people complain about them.

This is the best advice I have seen on here!

Conserve does not have the authority to settle your debt; any proposed settlement has to be approved by the dept of ed.

Eliminate the middleman and get a better settlement.  (Conserve doesn't want anyone to know this because then they don't get a chunk of it)

file a complaint with the FTC

Melinda, if you receiving a "refund" at the end of the year, you are overpaying taxes throughout the year.

You should change your w4 (increase # of deductions) to what you are legally allowed to claim; you may have to pay a little at tax time but that is much better than overpaying your taxes during the year and then having your refund seized

file a complaint with the FTC