Ah, college. If I knew you were going to cost me so much in the long run I just would have picked up a book and started self teaching.
I came out of school owing Sallie Mae around $80, 000 and after I got a job I had to live at home since about 90% of my income was going to loans. It didn't take long before Sallie Mae started finding ways to mess with me. The way they got me was that my monthly payment days kept skipping around. Not a regular amount of skipping around but the instance that got me was my loan was due on the 29th one month and then on the 17th the next month. I called them to tell that because of the short time period I would not be able to make another payment so soon. "Well, if you miss the payment your interest rate will go up." At that time I think my payment was $70 dollars a month. Which was $20 more than my promissory $50 a month when I signed up for the loans, but I figured I was paying it off faster.

Well I missed that date and my interest rate went from 2.5% to 17.00%. Well next month rolled around and of course I couldn't pay the now $1, 100 monthly payment they were asking of me. Especially since according to the date I had 3 weeks to pay it. I still had a crap job and there was no way. I tried to consolidate my 11 different loans, but they weren't consolidating. They did let me transfer $40, 000 out to Direct Loans at 4% (awesome). And after about three months of not being able to pay they settled with me and locked my payment dates to the 14th and lowered my interest rate to 7.25%. I'm guessing this was so I did not complain so much. This took about 14hrs of sitting on the phone to accomplish total. And there were several harassing phone calls. One customer service rep even called me an idiot for borrowing so much money when I couldn't pay it back. And yes, once the collection agency calls started I had people calling my house claiming to be old girlfriends or distant relatives, advising me to call and talk to them. I'm sorry if I don't want to talk to you 14 times a day.

I have always found it funny that if Sallie Mae has to call me, I get someone who speaks clear English and has a nasty demeanor, but if I call them I get someone nice and kind but speaks such horrible English I can't get anything accomplished with them. It's the most frustrating experience with customer service that I have ever had.

Today I'm complaining because for the last 4 months Sallie Mae has been overcharging me, on top of the regular nickel and diming me that goes on. I have one loan that is $9016.08 and an interest rate of 7.25%. Let's do the math here. 9016.08*.0725/12 = $54.48 for a month. They are charging me $90.08 this month. Which means another 2 hour phone call is ahead of me. Plus they've charged me two late fees on this because I have 1) missed to pay it, because my bill shot up $30 without warning and my auto withdrawal didn't cover it (which was fixed, not!) 2.) because it was fixed, they told me the amount I had to pay for next month over the phone, and then it was not fixed when I received my next lay bill. In four months Sallie Mae has stolen at least $190 from me. And there has been zero threat of rising my interest rate, which I thought would be their first trick again.

This has caused me take a closer look at my bills. Despite always paying over my interest by $100 a month, sometimes my balance goes up. How? This is day 4 of trying to get this figured out. 8 hours on the phone with them, and I have made zero progress.

I hope Sallie Mae gets no new clients and goes out of business. FAST. They are crooked, and are the seediest of companies that I have ever had to deal with. I have so many more complaints about them, but I think my point is made. It's horrible. It's an absolute atrocity . Stay as far away from them as you can. I would pay 10% interest on my loans if it meant not giving Sallie Mae another cent.

Sallie Mae refuses to provide accountability on loan - double talk and strong arm tactics has been the mode.

Over the course of four months Sallie mae representatives have refused to provide a written accountability of nthe account.

On line access has been a mess.

The reps are well trained to manage difficult situations by ignoring information provided, long wait times, no follow through and passing issues along. Finding someone in the chain of authority ends up with long wait times and as often as not s call that dies because no one picks up the cal;l.

It is clealy the "gang that cannot shoot straight".

I am currently over due student loans to SLM by six months because I have never received a hard copy bill. They state that they have e-mailed me bills. I had no idea I was getting bills for student loans through my e-mail as my account filters to junk mail I do not open mail from places that I do not recognize. I received an e-mail from my college and ignored it for some time as I thought it was more advertisements to get me enrolled in Master's programs.
Upon reviewing and finding that I am delinquent in student loans other than those I have been paying (timely because a hard copy bill was sent) I contacted the SLM to understand what was even happening and if the delinquency was even legitimate. It appears that I am over 6 months delinquent on student loans I was not aware I had, no other form of communication attempt was made to contact me other than e-mail even though they had my MOST CURRENT address in their files. They did report my delinquency to credit agencies, but made no attempt to mail me any delinquent information.
They said I could Forebear my loan which in summary would basically add all the fees, interests etc onto my student loan which is a great way to take advantage of the consumer and have them take loans on interest on loans increasing their debt and increasing the interest payments that would be made through out the life of the loan. I said no to this option. The service rep. tried to act as if she was doing me a service in offering this; explaining that delinquency on this loan would continue to be reported if I did not forbear the loan. She also stated I was shouting at her when I was not. I was upset and discussed with her in detail and with empathetic reasoning why I might be upset, that I was not upset with her but that her company had provided terrible customer service. I was the one impacted by their lack of effective communication, I was the one who is out the fees, interest, and credit worthiness and that I felt that I have a right to be upset about how this was handled. She very briskly tried to tell me it was my responsibility to keep my accounts current with updated e-mail, and addresses even though SHE HERSELF HAD VERIFIED EARLIER she had my most current address and also empathized with me as to why I would not open up what appeared to be spam mail.
When I tried to respond to her accusation that I had not kept my mailing address current with factual input she talked over me loudly "Mama! Mama!'.
She would not let me finish my sentences, she would not take responsibility for what her organization had done in failing to inform the customer in a proper manner of billing requirements, and she acted as if I was being unreasonable for being upset about being taken advantage of.
I am not sure if I am the only one that has had this issue with this company. I am sure not. I would be interested in knowing how much financial gain SLM has made from e-mail billing at the expense of students who have tried to simply better themselves and their station in life.
I am writing to report SLM company as it seems as if they are intentionally allowing their debtors to be delinquent to the financial betterment of the SLM. Thank-you with any assistance you can provide in this Better Business Bureau investigation. I have reported this to BBB.

I have dealt with a number of companies, regarding a variety of issues in the past. Unfortunately, I have never had such difficulty working with any customer service department, as I have experienced with Sallie Mae. My interactions with that department have been extremely frustrating, infuriating and futile, to say the least.

In brief

Prior to these events, I have held an excellent credit rating and responsibly paid my debts. However, my credit history has been damaged as a result of Sallie Mae’s customer service department’s mishandling of my account. Additionally, I have accrued some late fees due to these same issues. Finally, I am dissatisfied with my current bill payment arrangement.

Customer disservice

This debacle starts a little over two years ago when my wife was about six months pregnant with our second child. Up to this point, I had been paying Sallie Mae using the automatic withdrawal from my checking account method. Things were going well. Unfortunately, my wife’s boss started to realize that with a baby on the way, my wife was headed for some maternity leave and he would have one less employee for a few months, so he fired her. I only mention it because I believe that it is important. Our finances got a little tight and I had to switch to paper billing through the mail. It afforded us a little more time each month to make the pay. We struggled and were on the verge of losing our house, so I requested a deferment of my payments.

After my deferment period had expired, I didn’t receive any bills. When I called to inquire, I was informed that I owed some money due to missed payments and, of course, there were some late fees associated with that as well. I asked how this could have happened. I was told that I was responsible for mailing in my bills because I was now on the ‘coupon’ method of repayment. I informed them that I had NOT requested the coupon option and would prefer to go back to receiving my bills in the mail. Sallie Mae’s customer service department could not figure out how my account was switched to coupon payment. I spoke to several different members of Sallie Mae’s staff on multiple occasions (monthly) and the problem was never resolved, despite the fact that they had assured me each time that it had.

A short time later, I contacted Sallie Mae to try and find a solution to my problem of not being able to make a particular payment on time. I was waiting for a check to be mailed to me. I had not received it yet and I was unable to pay my bill at that point. When I spoke to a Sallie Mae representative, he assured me that I could avoid the late fee by switching my due date to a later date in the billing cycle. He proceeded to switch the dates for me. Later that month, I was informed, via a barrage of phone calls, that I was late on that month’s payment and there were some additional late fees as a result. It seems that the due date switch cannot take effect until the next billing cycle, negating the reason I had the switch made in the first place. My customer service ‘help’ failed to inform me of that. Of course this error, his error, resulted in fees I had to pay.

My next phone conversation with Sallie Mae was concerned with trying to get my account back onto paper billing, again. For some reason, my representative could not make this adjustment. They suggested that I use Sallie Mae’s online payment option through their website.

Frustrated with all of my previous attempts to resolve this situation with customer service, I was willing to try anything. I went to the website and created an account in an attempt to pay my bills online. I reviewed, checked off and paid every due amount I could find on the web page, associated with the billing groups on my account (the website is unable to display them all on one place, apparently). Still, a month later I received a volley of phone calls indicating that payments were missed and, you guessed it, additional fees were due.

Adding insult to injury

Feeling financially overwhelmed, I decided to apply for an income based repayment plan. I tried to fill out the documentation on Sallie Mae’s website, but I was confused by some of the wording of the questions and opted to fill out the forms which I downloaded from the same site and just fax them in to the number provided. I never heard from Sallie Mae.

Having no real alternative, I had to call Sallie Mae customer service for some help with this new issue. I called during the week, during normal business hours (I have learned to never call after hours or on the weekend, since the ‘help’ available at those times is even less adept) to try and find out what had happened with my submission. At this point I had also learned to never talk to the standard Sallie Mae staff, since they could not solve any of my issues. In fact, they tended to make matters worse. I immediately asked for a supervisor, thinking that this will enhance my chances of success. In addition, I have started asking for names, full names. Corey Keller, if that was his real name, was the supervisor I was working with.

The first thing he said was “Wow, your account is a MESS!” He then proceeded to ask me when I filed the income based repayment documents. When I told him that I wasn’t really sure, he gave me a hard time, indicating that I should know that information. I made a guess off the top of my head as to when I submitted the paperwork. He rudely piped in and informed me that it was actually a month after the date I had given him. I could not figure out why he would ask me for the information if he had it in front of him, on the computer, all along.

Feeling like I was being verbally reprimanded, I asked him if he remembered every date associated with forms that he had ever filled out. He very snidely said to me: “If it’s important to me, I do it and I remember”. He then indicated to me that I had filed for income based repayment online and no action was taken since the form was incomplete. I told him that I that I was aware of that and that I had filed a second time with a fax. He told me that no action had been taken since the paperwork was not received. Feeling extremely frustrated, I asked him to send me the paperwork, via the mail, again. It’s been over two weeks and I have still not received my income based repayment documentation. Obviously, Corey had not followed through on his responsibilities. I wasn’t sure whether Corey Keller’s job wasn’t ‘important’ enough to him or if he was just a liar, but I wanted to call and find out. Seeking some measure of accountability, I called Sallie Mae and asked for Corey. I was put on hold while he was located. I sat on hold for 48 minutes. At that point, I hung up in frustration. Had I not done so, I would probably still be on hold, waiting.

In my desperate search of Sallie Mae’s website for some answers, I came across an interesting quote which is sited as being a Sallie Mae slogan. It reads:

“Customer Service is not a department, it’s an attitude”.

As a customer, I didn’t really experience a great deal of service, but there was certainly a fair amount of attitude.

The solution

Despite all of this, I am still willing to try and salvage this situation. If Sallie Mae is at all interested in making things right, this is what I propose. (1) Repair my damaged credit rating. All of these issues have lead to late and missed payments, none of which are due to any errors on my part. In addition, I have exerted considerable effort in trying to rectify the situation to no avail. Therefore, I do not believe that I should be penalized for them. (2) Waive all outstanding late fees associated with late and missed payments. Again, these fees are directly associated with my inability to work with a competent member of the customer service staff and as a result, I do not believe that I should be penalized. (3) Return me to paper billing. Just mail me my bills, all of my bills, clearly indicating the amount (s) owed for ALL of my billing groups.

I believe that these are very reasonable requests and my argument is well founded.

Seven times since Dec of 2009 I have submited the proper paper work to discharge my loan due to the fact that I have become disabled. I have taken to send it by mail in a way to have them sign for it and have received the card back that says that they have received it yet have been told repeatedly that either did not get it or it is not filled out corectly, yet I responded and filled it out as was directed by them. In January I requested that I receive further deferral for hardship, even though I have the receipt from the U.S. Post Office. I will now have to reapply for deferment even though the corrected medical form was attached to the deferment. They acknowledge that they now have the medical form and are processing it, they deny having the deferment form. I will now have to submit another form. The processing is done in another country on the grounds that Americans won't do that kind of work. I know many Americans who would be more than willing to do the work. Sallie Mae is regulated by our govenment and should not be able to outsource the work, especially in this time of economic heardship. Half the time you get someone who does not understand English well enough to solve the problem. Really frustrated in Oklahoma. Patt777