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have been a customer 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 have been a customer with Sallie Mae since 2001 as an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Southern California. I made some payments during school, but most loan repayment began when I graduated in May 2008. Since 2001, as you may or may not know, there have been several changes to the companys’ online accounts, specifically as it pertains to overpayments. In brief, there have been several instances of overpayments made to my account since 2001 and none have them have been applied correctly. I made several calls as a recent graduate to have all overpayments applied to the highest interest loans. At the time, all I knew and was advised was to call in for this type of request. A few months ago, overpayments could be done online or with a letter sent for each overpayment (I was told over the phone), today, a different an unclear process is required for all overpayments. Over the years, there are numerous changes to the process for overpayments as a customer, and it has been extremely challenging to follow. Customer service has said several different steps to take to ensure and confirm overpayments and over the years this has been unclear, misguided and a struggle. For some time as I focused on my career I just made my regular payments and overpayments and did not verify whether they were applied correctly or not. To be honest, I did not have time to talk to Customer Service to verify as the wait time was lengthy and the time it took the representative to verify and look into my account was also lengthy. Additionally, with the time difference from east coast and west coast, it was also a struggle to call often to check in with Sallie Mae. Recently, I decided to take a look into my account and realized that a total of $19,113.88 of overpayments were not processed correctly per my request. As I mentioned previously, several years ago, the process advised for allocating overpayments was to call. I called and trusted the company would do so. When I called recently after my unfortunate realization of several years of mistake I was told there was nothing that could be done. I was told all overpayments needed to be done online. I explained to the representative at the call center that online overpayment allocation was not available years ago and that it was accepted to do so over the phone. Unfortunately, there are no records on their end, I was told, and that was the end of that conversation. Frustrated, I called on my next day off and spoke to a different representative. I was then told they could re-allocate it but it would take a few days to do so. I thought that it was wonderful that they were helping. When I checked my account, nothing was changed. I called back again several days later and they said they had no record of that conversation either. Of course I was frustrated but patient as this was not new customer service to me. The new representative told me they would personally back track and re allocate the past 6 months of overpayment. She told me she couldn’t go back further than that without manager approval, but that it could and has been done. I waited for about 45 minutes on the phone while she manually processed overpayments for 6 months. I thanked her for her time. I had to go back to work so I told her I would back again to speak to a supervisor. On August 13, 2012, I spoke to a few different people when I was transferred to a supervisor, “Debbie e59968”. Debbie was initially hesitant, but towards the end was understanding and was helpful and told me that she was not sure if she was going to be able to help me but was going to check with her supervisor. She was the first person to ask for my contact information and was going to contact me with whether or not they were going to be able to help me. She said if they were, that it would take a few days for her to process, as she would have to process all reallocation of overpayments herself. She also said that if approval was to be granted that I would need to gather all information of previous overpayment and that I would need to send that to her. She strictly and clearly said that until I hear from her, to NOT spend time gathering information, as she knew it would take me a long time. Either way, I gathered it all, as I was communicating with Sallie Mae for several months trying to fix this. Finally, I received a call from Debbie that it was approved and to fax her all my documentation immediately so she can get started with the reallocation. I finally felt relieved that her promise to reallocate and fix this issue was done. I faxed all documentation to her immediately (documentation faxed to Debbie is attached). The next day or so, I received a call from Debbie. I missed the call because I was at work and called her back not expecting to hear what I heard. She apologized and said she was no longer able to process this even though she had given me her word as a supervisor. I was completely astonished and shocked after everything I had been through, after everything her and I discussed and ultimately after her approval as a supervisor of Sallie Mae and my processing of her documentation with her approval, that she rescinded the offer. As you can see, this is not light matter. This is several years of nearly perfect and timely full payments on my part. This is a company promising me that they would rectify an issue of nearly $20, 000 difference to me. I still owe over $95,000 to Sallie Mae and am very fearful of them not using best practices as a company, of rescinding a supervisor approval directly to a guest and for not honoring their word. Please let me know of the next steps or additional documentation necessary. I could, if needed, provide cell phone records of all the times I called and the length of the call as well.

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