GreensSky loans are primarily unsecured, and made for home improvements. The loan amounts can reach above fifty thousand dollars. How much your monthly payment is will depend on the amount of your loan, and the interest rate applied.
The larger the loan, the harder it can be to keep current with the payments. When financial setbacks occur, we sometimes must make tough decisions about who will get paid, and who will not.
What happens when you fall behind on your GreenSky loan will often vary depending on who underwrote it.
GreenSky Lending Partners
Technology companies have grown into the lending markets. GreenSky is a good example of this. They are the platform you use to qualify for, and manage your loan, but there are several different banks behind these loans.
Some of the banks Funding GreenSky’s loans include Fifth Third, Truist, Synovus, and BMO Harris.
There may be a few smaller lending partners too. You can post in the comments below for feedback about these larger lenders, or any smaller one you may have.
Getting Lower Monthly Payments from GreenSky
All of the larger banks listed about may have a hardship payment plan you can talk to them about. This could help you lower your monthly payments temporarily, or even for the life of the balance.
The hardship plans help by lowering your interest rate and amortizing your pay off for the loan over no more than a 5 year period.
If the bank that funded your GreenSky loan also issues credit cards, they are accustomed to offering lower monthly payment plans through a nonprofit credit counseling agency. They may even suggest you contact one of the many national agencies rather than taking you through the process to see if you qualify for lower payments themselves.
One of these Credit counseling agencies could potentially help make your other unsecured debts more affordable, thereby freeing up monthly cash flow to meet your GreenSky payments.
Settling Your GreenSky Loan for Less
You can settle most unsecured debts for less when you are late several months on your payments, and GreenSky loans are no exception. How you go about settling your GreenSky loan will depend on the bank that actually funded your loan.
As mentioned above, there are 4 larger banks that fund most of the GreenSky loans.
There are some things that banks do similarly when it comes to settling for less, and there are some things that will change from one to the next too. I will cover the similarities between Synovus, Truist (BB&T), Fifth Third, and BMO Harris first.
- Most banks wait until you are 4 months late (6 months on credit cards) before they charge off your loan balance and subject your unpaid account to their collection policies and procedures.
- Most banks will have some variation of settlement for less discussions before they charge off your account and place it for collections or sell your unpaid account to a debt buyer.
Check out my coverage on how banks tend to drop accounts into different buckets for collection. It will help you understand why you may be more motivated to settle a debt with the original lender, or why it may pay to wait to settle your debt with Fifth Third, Synovus, BB&T, or BMO Harris later on.
The Four Paths For Collection
- Assign your debt to a collection agency.
- Sell your debt to a debt buyer.
- Sue you to collect.
- Do nothing other than to hold your account internally.
We can settle debts with these lenders at any point in the life cycle of your debt.
There are strategic reasons to target earlier settlements, especially when you have the cash resources to settle early on.
There are other times you want to wait longer to settle, such as when you do not have a lump sum to work with and would benefit from the longer term settlement payments that may come from negotiating with a debt buyer or a collection agency.
There are additional layers of complexity if you have more than just your GreenSky loan to settle. You can schedule a phone call with me by clicking the box below, or the Get Debt Help tab above. I will be able to help you understand your settlement targets, and strategic options to get the best savings, and eliminate risks with these 4 banks that likely funded your loan, and your other debts too.
What if your GreenSky loan is secured?
Most GreenSky loans are unsecured, but you may have a secured loan through Truist, Fifth Third, Synovus, or BMO Harris if you took the loan out to purchase and install solar panels.
Sued for Your GreenSky Loan
Like I mentioned above, pretty much all lenders see suing to collect as one of the four options available to them. Your risks of being sued by the lender backing your GreenSky loan is real.
Debt buyers also sue to collect.
You can avoid being sued all together. You accomplish this by having resources at the ready early enough to prevent attorney placement, or over a long enough period to agree to settle your loan using monthly payments.
You can still settle if your loan has been placed with a collection attorney. The deals and terms are typically not as flexible. You can even settle if you have already been sued for collection, but here again, the deal is likely going to be for less savings.
GreenSky on Your Credit Reports
It is normal to see your GreenSky loan showing late on your credit reports once you have missed a payment by 30 days or more. If your GreenSky loan is settled, once you have completed the settlement, it will typically then be updated to show a zero balance owed. It basically shows as a paid collection, and your credit will bounce back from there.
If there is a debt buyer showing up on your credit that means BMO Harris, Truist, Fifth Third, or Synovus sold the legal rights to your debt. These banks would then show late payments, but a zero balance owed to them, as they do not own your loan any more.
When you complete a settlement with the debt buyer they will either update your credit to show a zero balance, or paid collection. And some debt buyers will delete their credit reporting all together, once you resolve your GreenSky loan with them.
It can take 30 to 60 days for the bank or the debt buyer to update your credit reports.
GreenSky Settlement with the CFPB
GreenSky found themselves in a pickle recently due to having insufficient data to show some loans were made with consumer consent. More on that here:
https://insidearm.com/news/00047533-cfpb-fines-greensky-25-million-and-requir/
If you believe your loan would qualify for the type of redress in that report you should consider contacting an experienced debt collection consumer law attorney in your state.
You can post your comments, concerns and questions about your loan, or any of the banks, collection agencies, or debt buyers you may be dealing with in the comment box below. I respond to comments on the site virtually every day. You can also schedule a phone consult with me to talk through your situation and goals privately.
Is there anything I can do to prepare as a low-income person with a loan that exceeds my current annual income, but is not due yet, rather just accruing interest in case I don’t pay it back in the remaining “free” 8 months?
What is your capacity to earn extra money in the next 8 months?
My 84 year old mother got mixed up with GS for a loan for roof repair. At the time she agreed to the loan, she was medicated and in a nursing home after breaking her hip. The salesman went to the nursing home to do the contract and apparently did the electronic signature for her. After getting the info in the mail, she freaked out as she did not realize she signed for a 10 year loan! She has tons of medical bills for herself, and my father, who is in a nursing home permanently. It is a definite financial hardship and she wants to cancel the whole thing. What is the best way to go about this? Thank you.
I would look to the cancellation language in the GreenSky agreement, and to speak with an experienced consumer law attorney in her state. There may be something about the way the loan was transacted that could help her. You can find attorneys in her state using the menus here: https://www.consumeradvocates.org/findanattorney/
Reviewing my deceased aunt’s accounts found a Green Sky account with a balance of $332.41. Last payment March 23, my aunt died February 23. I called Green Sky and asked for the account to be waived due to not founding any contract with Green Sky. Checking Credit Reports on my aunt, I find an entry under Truist Bank for $329, I am guessing it is the same debt. In addition , I got a Phillips & Cohen letter asking for information on the estate holder of my aunt. This might be a different issue as I found an overdue Sears account with several collection agencies’ requests for payment since 2018. Any guidance on this is appreciated it.
Is there an estate? Are you the executor?
My aunt was a joint tenant to a house alongside my brother and myself. There is no will. I submitted the affidavit of joint tenant recently to have my aunt’s name removed. There is an outstanding mortgage loan of 298,000 under my aunt’s name from the house title.
I would talk this over with a real estate attorney in your area.
Got a loan through greensky for windows just 10 days before I was sent a packet with instructions to create an online presence. Site said I had an existing account? If so, I don’t know about it. asked for a new password, never got a reset .. anything. called the salesman when the phone number for GS would lead me to no human voice. Tried EVERY extension. Salesman business card has ONLY HIS cell phone and email. He was out of town with no access to VM. He gets back and as if he was helping a child, he is telling me how to sign up. Told him I did and forwarded pics of how the process DIDNT work! Told him I am too leary of doing business with GS and found MANY comments the same! Can still not reach anyone! Can I cancel this transaction even though it’s beyond the 72 hours? I do not trust GS and still can’t reach them!
I cannot speak to your cancellation options, but I would continue to try to escalate your concerns to a supervisor or manager.
If you cannot get anywhere, and still want to cancel, you may want to consider filing a complaint with the CFPB to get this issue in front of a better person at GreenSky.
How can I negotiate starting up a loan payment plan after not being able to continue payments for over more than a year? The payments want to SunTrust Bank.
If you are more than a few months late on your GreenSky loan payments I would consider settling the debt for less than the balance owed.
First I would want to see if you can raise the cash to do a lump sum single payment on the negotiated balance reduction.
Next I would look at getting the total balance negotiated to a lower amount, and then make payments on that.
We are successful at helping with either of those options if you would like assistance with this.
You may find the account is with a third party collection company after this long, and that would be normal. Settling GreenSky loans with debt collectors is just as common.
I signed up with a settlement company a while ago. I dumped them after settling on 2 smaller loans, after I realized that there is no way they will be able to keep the original agreement of $849 for 5 years despite telling me, that it will be even shorter period of payments, because the settlement will be so good. I just settled with the Greensky on 50% off the original loan in 10 payments. That is great, but they don’t want to give me any written proof of settlement. They said, that after 10 months they will just set my balance to 0. Do you know if this is normal? Or should I demand the document?
I would not be comfortable doing the settlement with GreenSky without the deal in writing.
They often make professional negotiators like us send the written template of the settlement, but they sign off on it.
Let me know if you want help with this.