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formal complaint about my recent experience with SALLIE MAE

Michael Agruss

Written and Reviewed by Michael Agruss

  • Managing Partner and Personal Injury Lawyer at Mike Agruss Law.
  • Over 20 years of experience in Personal Injury.
  • Over 8000+ consumer rights cases settled.
  • Graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law: Juris Doctor, 2004.

To Whom It May Concern: I would like to file a formal complaint about my recent experience with SALLIE MAE and what I believe is a dishonest business practice. On Wednesday, Dec 13, 2012 I received a confirmation email notifying my payment of $2,546.25 (sum of 3 payments of $1731.90 + 647.75 + $167.75) was posted to my SALLIE MAE account. My previous monthly payment was $290.60 (3 payments of $161.30 + 67.94 + 61.36) so this new payment caused quite some alarm because the $2,546.25 not only drained my bank account but required a personal credit card overdraft protection amount of $2000. I immediately called SALLIE MAE to find out what had changed and was informed I had not applied to renew my Income Based Repayment (IBR) plan. I was informed that they had emailed me about it in September. I logged into my personal email where I found two emails from Sallie Mae on the dates Sept 14 and 15 with the title of “Your Sallie Mae Account Information” and along with 3 emails regarding “Your Sallie Mae Statement is ready to view” during the same time frame. I logged into the SALLE MAE communications website, which is a separate login website than the usual loan website, and reviewed my messages. The initial messages display did not have any communications about it’s time to renew my IBR. I was required to “view more documents” to see a list of all my communications where I saw two communications, the first one on 14-Sep-2012 and the second on 15-Sep-2012 with the title “It’s Time to Renew Your Income Based Repayment plan”. The 1st SALLIE MAE customer service representative I was talking to told me erroneous information about the IBR plan and the capitalization of interest and after further questioning I was transferred to a much more knowledgeable and helpful SALLIE MAE customer service representative who told me that if I could fax in my IBR application as soon as possible it should be processed within 9 business days. However, I was informed the payment would not be refunded or partially refunded and the capitalized interest could not be removed. The explanation of how these changes could not be reversed was a little convoluted with vague references to “Federal counters” and with no explanation of any recourse I might have to pursue this matter. My complaints from this incident regarding SALLIE MAE’s business practices include: -I was not notified by email that I had to renew my IBR plan. What happen was I was sent two emails on two consecutive days 3 months prior to the end of my current IBR plan stating that I had correspondence from SALLIE MAE. -The emails were sent in the same time frame as my usual monthly statement emails, therefore increasing the chance they would be overlooked. -No emails or correspondence were sent in the months of October, November, or December regarding renewing or losing the IBR plan. -No phone calls were made from SALLIE MAE to me regarding this extreme change in payment which could result in potential hardship and significant increased cost of the loans. Nor were there any written or printed communications sent to me about this either. – During two phone conversations I initiated with SALLIE MAE on July 24th, 2012 and August 27th, 2012, I inquired about applying for renewal of my IBR only to be told it was too early. My recollection of the conversations include being told that I would be contacted when it would be time to renew my IBR. I do not feel two emails notifying me of messages on a proprietary messaging system 3 months prior to end of my current IBR satisfy any requirement of properly notifying anyone of anything. -Previous correspondences from SALLIE MAE have included notifications a month prior to any changes in ACH where a new or increased monthly payment amount would be deducted from my bank account. There were no such correspondence regarding the change in any of the 3 amounts that occurred Dec 12, 2012 (Note: the transactions was processed Dec 12, 2012 and I received my email Dec 13, 2012). -SALLIE MAE’s system for the preferred method of communication makes it more difficult to receive mailing through physical mail as opposed to email. For example, during my phone call I had a SALLIE MAE representative change my preferred method of communication to physical mail as opposed to email in order to reduce the likelihood of having an email overlooked. However, when I logged in to SALLIE MAE that evening and updated my account information (these update account information occur very frequently) I received a message stating my preferred method of communication was switched back to email. So I logged in and had to go through several pages of choices in order to again, switch back to regular mail. SALLIE MAE’s system very easily switches method of communications to emailing which is understandably their favorite method while making it difficulty to switch to regular mail. This steering of which method of communication only increases the likelihood that notifications will be accidentally overlooked or lost in the future. -Not only will the unexpected and non-communicated change of payment $2,546.25 from $290.60 cause significant financially distress in December and several months following, the addition of the capitalized interest amount of $8.109.76 to the principals of the loans will, by my conservative estimates, increase the costs of the loans by over 800 dollars, making this error a very financially expensive one. And excerpt from the SALLIE MAE website in the ABOUT US section: “The company offers innovative private student loans that help customers save money and offer shorter repayment terms. In addition, Sallie Mae offers planning tools and resources to assist students, parents, and guidance professionals with the financial aid process.” I feel my own experience shows that SALLIE MAE did not do what most would consider the bare minimum in notifying me of what needed to be done to 1 – “help me, the customer, save money” and or 2 – “assist me with the financial aid process”.

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