Jake
Indianapolis,#2Consumer Comment
Sat, September 30, 2006
I work for another student loan company. People who have repeated problems with checks being cashed and not applied to their account are often making a some really basic mistake that stems from not understanding what century they are living in. Do not imagine that a human being actually looks at the check and spends time looking up the name in a database that has millions of borrowers. Your check is read by a computer and applied to an account based on the account number on the check. If there is no account number, or an invalid account number, the check will still be cashed and and will not be applied to your account. The check will be cashed if it is written out to a different company. The check will be cashed if it is not signed. If the computer can read the routing number and *bank* accountt number coded on the check it will be cashed. Period. Although the people that answer when you call them on the phone can use the borrowers social security number to find the account, the social security number is *not* the account number. If something other than the account number is in the memo field the check will be cashed, and it will not be applied to an account. "Unapplied payments" will be processed by some team of people that will attempt to locate an account. If they can find an account they will apply it, but it could take a month after it's cashed, or longer, for your payment to be reviewed. If they cannot locate an account they will eventually atempt to issue a refund to the person who wrote the check. Usually when that happens you get a letter saying why they can't apply the payment to an account, a check from them to you for the amount they cashed, and the front and back copy of the check they cashed.