SallieMae Don't use them to finance your college education! RIPOFF Nationwide
My husband obtained his BS degree in 2003 and he used SallieMae to help finance his student loan. It seemed ok at first, but in the last 3 months it has been horrendous! He recently switched to online bill pay and had the appropriate accounts set up. Over the course of about 2 or 3 months he has had to call their customer service SEVEN times because they are always screwing up the payment received. He always pays on time, but their records never show it, now when he calls it goes directly to a collection agency.
BEWARE - they are just trying to scam him into paying late fees and/or raising his interest rate. And everytime they say they have fixed it, it never happens.
I would be very interested to see if anyone else has had this problem with them, if so, POST IT!
Also, if anyone knows how we can fix this please let us know, it is getting ridiculous. He has talked to multiple managers and it never gets resolved.
Sammy
Fountain Hills, Arizona
U.S.A.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Larry
Tucson,Arizona,
U.S.A.
Business as usual
#3Consumer Suggestion
Thu, December 08, 2005
I took out two student loans in the early 1980's when I went back to school. Student Loan Marketing Association was just as bad back then as they are now.
Several payments went unposted. When I requested a copy of their records I received an unsigned and undated list of payments on a plain sheet of paper!
Eventually I got the student loans paid off and thought all was behind me. Five years later when I went to refinance my house, the credit report pulled up by my mortgage lender showed that I still owed $600. Since I had discarded all of my student loan records years earlier, I had no proof that I had paid the loans off. In order to refinance, I had to agree to allow my mortgage lender to pay SLMA that $600 -- at my expense. I wanted the lower interest rate so I allowed them to pay SLMA.
Five years later I got a letter from SLMA stating that they had discovered that I had overpayed by $600 (gee, what a coincidence!). Eventually they did refund the money and sent a letter confirming that my loans were paid off if full.
The lesson is when dealing with SLMA to keep careful records and never throw anything away. You never know when these wonderful folks are going to come out of the woodwork and bite your a*s.
If you can still send checks to SLMA -- instead of using their online facility -- have your checks sent via your bank's bill-paying feature. This will generate a check that will be mailed directly to SLMA and (most importantly) your payment will be processed and mailed by a neutral third party so you can prove beyond a doubt that you made the payments.
Deborah
Reading,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
Sallie Mae
#3Consumer Comment
Wed, December 07, 2005
I just finished paying off my student loan last year. I never had any trouble with the internet pay. Sorry to hear it is been so bad. I it possible to refinance with someone else?