<prompt> Human: Ive been a long time lurker of PF and thought the crowd here would be the perfect group to ask this question to. Here is my situation:While in undergrad I had a scholarship that covered tuition cost only. Therefore, I took out a loan for housing, meal plan, etc. At the same time I was taking this loan, I noticed in my financial aid package I was getting stafford loans, in my infinitely dumb younger 18 year old wisdom, I assumed Sallie Mae would cover that as well. Fast forward to now, I got a call from a collections agency 2 weeks ago saying that they had ownership over my debt for delinquent payments for the stafford loans. I was confused since I never got a single piece of mail advising me I was late on payments, since I assumed I was paying them with my monthly Sallie Mae payments. After calling necessary parties, I found out they were sending the letters of notice and late payment to my college address the one my university had on file. Now, the debt has reach 17K. The collection company offered me to pay a 13K lump sum payment which I definitely cannot afford right now, and I cant take a personal loan out from my credit union since this has come up as a negative mark on my credit report. On top of that, the balance of 17K, I was told the balance would acquire 2.60 of interest PER day. I just have absolutely 0 clue how to go about this, my family has 0 knowledge of this, and I am too embarrassed to ask friends. Ive done some archive research here on saw that some preliminary things to do before offering to pay such and was wondering given my situation if this is the correct advice...ie calling and asking for proof of my debt, negotiating with them for a very low lump sum payment much lower than the 13K they offered. Any help of advice would be GREATLY appreciated. I have 0 clue where to go from here. Thanks!!  <response>: I would recommend heading over to creditboards.com since they have form letters that you can use to get things started. First thing first though, do everything in writing. No phone calls, no well so and so told me, none of that does you any good. You want documented pieces of paper that you can reference when needed. Yes, you will want to verify your debt. This can be done with a simple letter which needs to be sent certified mail return receipt - this puts it in writing and also verifies that they received the dispute. They are required by law to respond to this within 30 days. Like I said, creditboards does this on a daily basis, youll be in good hands there. 