Becareful, I think SallieMae employees are running a SCAM to bar people from filing for a forbearance. You are entitled to a forbearance by LAW. If they don't give it to you file a complaint with the proper agency. In my case, I was going to sue SallieMae Pro Se. Being a law student helps.

SallieMae employees informed me that they could NOT give me a forbearance into the furure only for the past debt to today. And that I would still have to make payment on the loan from today. They wanted to charge me $50 + loan payment.

SallieMae employees informed me that they have (1) government loans and (2) private laons. And a forbearance on a private loan cannot go into the future. Their website doesn't say that. I didn't see any law that defines a forbearance different for a private loan and government loan.

Today, after days of arguing with them, they gave me a forbearance into the future.

DEMAND YOUR RIGHTS!

I'm soon to be a postgraduate student off to Europe for my studies. I applied for a private loan through Sallie Mae many months before the start of my schooling. You would think that taking care of this ahead of time would have given me some room for "just in case something goes wrong." Unfortunately I had so many problems dealing with this company. First off when you call their customer service they sound satisfying with their innovative call back system so you don't have to wait on the phone, ...(discontent building), their call monitoring, and an option to give the representative a survey at the end of the call. When it comes to simple questions the customer service fulfills it's job. Once I started having real problems was when the unpleasantness began. Now I'm a real nice person. It takes a lot for me to get angry, and possibly if I went of my rocker earlier things would have happened. It's sad that a person has to become agitated to get something done. Basically all I need from Sallie Mae was a letter showing that the loan has been approved and accepted from my school. Sallie Mae told me I needed the school to contact them for this to get done. Okay fine, I did. Ever day after this I kept calling and they kept promising that I would get the letter and everything would be processed within 24- 72 hrs. of my complaint. The problem was every time I called the 24 to 72 hours started all over again. They kept telling me the same problems that I already took care of. Before this, I had applied for another loan to another University I was planning on attending but picked this other University instead. They didn't cancel the loan when I told them I was no longer attending that school. So that was another reason my loan was being delayed. Every time I called the customer service they said that it was being taken care of. They even went so far as to satisfy me by asking for a fax where they could send the loan letter. So I gave them one, and they probably weren't expecting me to have one. Upon giving this fax number they told me again that it would take another 24-72 hours for them to get the letter faxed to me. I don't know if the problem with the customer service is that it's overseas in the Philippines. Now I have nothing against that, in fact my parents are originally from that country, but they have no idea what they're doing and they basically lied to me everyday just to get me off their back. Finally I got through to someone higher up after having it up to here! She told me they needed my school to send some form they didn't recieve. She also gave me the most irritating news that nothing had been processed or done for all those weeks of calling. Not even one apology. I reported it to my school. My school got angry with them and asked why they didn't ask for the document sooner. Seriously! To this day I still do not have that letter in my hand and will now probably be late for my classes. Thank you Sallie Mae.

I recently paid my student loan bill online and Sallie Mae had added a new option of 'immediate payment' which I selected just to get the payment over with. Nowhere on that page was there a mention of a $14.95 charge. Since I had over a week to pay my loans I wouldn't have selected this option if there was a fee associated with it. Of course this fee ended up overdrawing my bank account and assessing me with an overdraft fee. I called sallie mae and talked to someone who promised to refund the $14.95 in 2-3 days (this has yet to happen) but refused to touch the overdraft fee which is also their responsibility.

Now of course their page contains three mentions of the $14.95 fee but these are all new since I made my payment and the payment option has also been changed to 'rush payment'.

Am currently trying to recover my money - phone calls have gotten me nowhere, trying letters now. Anyone else have this problem?

I was thrilled to hear that the government announced a loan forgiveness program for borrowers who work in public service (schools, public hospitals, libraries, etc). If your loan is paid in good standing for ten years and you are working in public service, the balance of your loan after 10 years is forgiven. That would take me into retirement.
Then I called Sallie Mae. They told me that since I consolidated my federal loans with them, I was not eligible for the program. The loans now belong to Sallie Mae which is a private company.
EVERYONE consolidates their loans through Sallie Mae. They present themselves, falsely, as a government agency, but are able to "opt out" of a government loan forgiveness program.
That's bait and switch and that's illegal.

I borrowed money from Sallie Mae while in college. Now, two years out of school, they have been harassing the hell out of me. I was thinking, it's the economy, stupid.

They accelerated the repayment schedule, refuse to readjust the terms, and won't even let me make a partial payment. They want me to pay $500.00 a month... but hell, I only make $350 a week.

I know college kids get in a bind and need money fior school. I'd think twice before borrowing from Sallie Mae. They're crooks.