My grace period ended and my first payment was due in November. I have paid about $3000 per loan for 2 loans that are serviced by Great Lakes. Online it has said Amount due: $0 and showed my next payment wasn't due until years in the future. My payments are $90 and $98 per month for 10 years both at 6.8%. My due date is the 12th every month.
Well, on Jan 10, 2013 I signed up for autopay for the 5th of each month for $100 per loan so I would get the .25% interest rate reduction. I got a confirmation message and it stated the first autopayment would be on Feb 5, 2013. No autopayment occured so I made a one time payment in mid Feb online and waited to see if the March autopayment would work. Nope. So I looked online it said "autopayment: $0 withdrawal date: March 12, 2013" not the right date or amount. I emailed the company and they said I was on IBR and autopayment does work on IBR. I emailed again explaining I never asked for IBR (you have to send in paperwork that I certainly didn't send them) and told them to remove that from my account and put me back on my normal payments. They emailed me back saying I signed up for IBR on Jan 3,2013 (LIES!) but they agreed to remove it from my account. I checked online and says IBR started on Feb 3, 2013.
Well, today I checked and they did remove IBR. Good. But now it says my monthly payments are $75 per loan every month starting in May. My autopay is set up for $75 per loan not the $100 I set it for and now the withdrawal date is for the 2nd of the month not the 5th like I requested and the company says to change the due date online but the withdrawal date and due date are 2 seperate dates and I can't change the withdrawal date online. Umm, what happened to those advanced payments? My payments should $90 and $98 like they were before and my due date shouldn't be technically due until about 2 years into the future like it was before they screwed up and put IBR on my account. I understand that with lower payments it would require more months so its due sooner but by federally regulation aren't they required to advance my due date into the future like they were before? I mean, this isn't a level payment plan if my payment amount changes. I had those 2 years of advanced payments as a buffer zone in case I have financial difficulties in the future. Its peace of mind and now its gone.
I guess, I'd like some validation that this is total crap. Or an explaination as to why this is allowed. I feel like, given what I've read about the federal regulations, this isn't legal but maybe I'm wrong. Why pay more than the minimum if they can just change the amount and make it due immediately whenever they want? I will say, my first autopayment was scheduled for 2/5/13 and IBR showed up on my account magically 2 days before that which cancelled my autopayments all together and I feel that was not just an error. Its like they were hoping I wouldn't notice no money was withdrawn meaning they'd get more interest in the long run. Seems a bit too suspicious to me to be an error. Should I request copies of the paperwork I supposedly sent them when I supposedly signed up for IBR? I am 100% sure I never sent them anything. I really want those 2 years back as my buffer zone. 
From my prior experience of working for a bank....
When you send in a large lump sum payment you should mark the check "for principle payment only". Even so, oftentimes it gets posted as a regular payment which will put your next due as far out is as covered by that payment. It sounds like there is a coding error in how the payment was processed. The autopay is not likely working because their system is showing $0 due. You will need to call the customer service and ask them to look at the payment system and see how the large payment you sent was applied. You would be surprised at how a miscoded payment application can gum up the works. You can also ask if they will send you a print out of the payment history and how the payments were applied.
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All the excess amount over the interest is being applied to my principal not future interest. It shows this on my account so I'm sure it's going through properly.
Great Lakes emailed me saying "we have submitted your request to remove IBR from your account. You will receive a new payment schedule on the standard repayment plan for each loan. When the payment schedule generates it removes any additional payments. After your new schedule has processed you will have the option to again increase the monthly payment (I think they are talking about the amount of my auto payment but idk) if you choose to."
So I mean I understand that the
$75 payments are based on my principal amount now not what it was before. They reduced my principal but recalculated my payment so it'll still take me 10 years to pay off not 8 ( since I was 2 years ahead). It's like they restarted my loans with this new principal amount.
I mean, every time you pay and reduce the principal on a loan they don't recalculate your monthly payment based on the new slightly lower principal balance but that's what Great Lakes is doing right now. On a level repayment plan all payments due over the life of the loan should be equal. I emailed again ( I won't call since I want written proof of what they say) but it'll be about a week before I hear back. The company basically says this all happened because I signed up for IBR and when they cancelled it they recalculate everything, which is extremely frustrating since I certainly did not sign up for IBR.
Great Lakes emailed me saying "we have submitted your request to remove IBR from your account. You will receive a new payment schedule on the standard repayment plan for each loan. When the payment schedule generates it removes any additional payments. After your new schedule has processed you will have the option to again increase the monthly payment (I think they are talking about the amount of my auto payment but idk) if you choose to."
So I mean I understand that the
$75 payments are based on my principal amount now not what it was before. They reduced my principal but recalculated my payment so it'll still take me 10 years to pay off not 8 ( since I was 2 years ahead). It's like they restarted my loans with this new principal amount.
I mean, every time you pay and reduce the principal on a loan they don't recalculate your monthly payment based on the new slightly lower principal balance but that's what Great Lakes is doing right now. On a level repayment plan all payments due over the life of the loan should be equal. I emailed again ( I won't call since I want written proof of what they say) but it'll be about a week before I hear back. The company basically says this all happened because I signed up for IBR and when they cancelled it they recalculate everything, which is extremely frustrating since I certainly did not sign up for IBR.
It's strange that they had you on an IBR because you have to submit documentation for that.
Are your statements showing a current amount due, or are they showing $0? You are correct in that the standard repayment plan is a essentially a fixed payment over the life of the loan and that they should not recalculate your payment. BUT because they erroneously had you on an IBR plan AND you made a lump sum payment and now the IBR is removed which is causing them to regenerate the payment schedule based on the NEW balance the payment has gone down and the term is reset to 10 years.
It will only take 10 years if you want it too. You can pay an additional amount over and above the scheduled payment which will pay down the loan faster and shorten the duration of time. If I were you, I'd pay the scheduled amount via autopay (try using your bank's bill pay function, not the servicer's interface) and then mail an additional amount in quarterly with a paper check marked "principal only". You can also see if they will make the repayment term 8 years as you want it to be.
You get it! My payments due monthly are $75 per loan now on the recalculated standard plan. they were $0 on IBR which is why my maximum allowed autopay was $0 since you cant autopay above the amount due with them on IBR.
I woke up this morning to find a generic email response from great lakes in my inbox. It says my payments are due now and it says how to sign up for a payment plan if the amount is too high. They didn't address the fact that I requested they send me copies of the paperwork they used for IBR (they can't send copies of paperwork they don't have).
I wouldn't mind that they recalculated the payment amount when IBR stopped if I had actually signed up for IBR. I know I can pay extra to get ahead again but I don't have the extra money now to get 2 years ahead again. I did that as a buffer zone for my own safety in case I couldn't pay and my buffer zone is gone now. I can maybe get a few months ahead atm but it'll be nothing like what it was. Plus, if I get ahead again what's stopping them from using IBR again so when I cancel it they can recalculate my payment again?
I'm gonna keep pursuing this. At the very least they need to send me the paperwork used for IBR (maybe they used someone elses IBR info and just put it on the wrong account idk) or admit IBR was accidental and set everything up like it used to be (very unlikely).
Any ideas who to talk to now? Great Lakes proved they don't care when they sent a generic email.
I woke up this morning to find a generic email response from great lakes in my inbox. It says my payments are due now and it says how to sign up for a payment plan if the amount is too high. They didn't address the fact that I requested they send me copies of the paperwork they used for IBR (they can't send copies of paperwork they don't have).
I wouldn't mind that they recalculated the payment amount when IBR stopped if I had actually signed up for IBR. I know I can pay extra to get ahead again but I don't have the extra money now to get 2 years ahead again. I did that as a buffer zone for my own safety in case I couldn't pay and my buffer zone is gone now. I can maybe get a few months ahead atm but it'll be nothing like what it was. Plus, if I get ahead again what's stopping them from using IBR again so when I cancel it they can recalculate my payment again?
I'm gonna keep pursuing this. At the very least they need to send me the paperwork used for IBR (maybe they used someone elses IBR info and just put it on the wrong account idk) or admit IBR was accidental and set everything up like it used to be (very unlikely).
Any ideas who to talk to now? Great Lakes proved they don't care when they sent a generic email.
Like you said, they can't send you something you never provided them. Sounds like you will have to escalate this up the food chain of Great Lakes for any kind of resolution. After having worked for a bank and seeing how payments are processed, it's better that you set aside your own funds in a reserve account for your cushion rather than relying on another entity to get it right and then if they don't you get the shaft. The garden variety rep you speak too will not understand what's going on.
About the only thing that will resolve this would be that the reset the loan for it's original term (beginning and end dates) and that the lump sum payment is applied as a regular payment which would give you a next due far into the future. Realistically this is probably not going to happen, so you will more than likely end up with a new loan term with a lower payment due to the decreased principal balance after the lump sum. When all else fails you could reach out to the Federal Student Loan Ombudsman office.
Look at it this way, you may not have that "buffer zone" as you want but you owe that much less and there is nothing stopping you from paying a little extra each month or quarterly. Even an extra $20 each month has an impact.
Thanks for your help with this. Had to call the company. The first lady on the phone insisted I had signed myself up for IBR. When I asked why I never got a message from the company (they send a message for literally everything you do) she told me I signed up for IBR on the federal loan website not the Great Lakes website. I'm not even sure that's possible but if it was I'd imagine my other loans with other companies would be on IBR as well and they aren't. She told me she could see about getting it corrected and then she changed her mind and insisted it wasn't something that could possibly be changed. She just kept saying "your payments are due now but the amount is lower. you signed up for this. you can defer it if you want to so whats the problem?" She was rude and cocky and didnt listen at all. So she transfer my call to a guy that seemed unimpressed and said "if you didn't sign up for IBR why'd you said an email about canceling it?" Umm duh I sent an email about canceling it because I never signed up for it. My email was very clear about that. He told me that wasn't in my email at all. It's like they think I'm too dumb to see a copy of the email I sent. I'm not. Ultimately he said they could reset it back to a previous date and that all the payments I've made will still be on my account and it'll be like none of this ever happened. I'm not confident at all that it'll get fixed but there's slight hope.
I get that these CSRs probably talk to a bunch of idiots that don't understand interest but I majored in math and accounting. If they're going to mess with someone's account maybe they should do it to someone with a less number-oriented education.
I get that these CSRs probably talk to a bunch of idiots that don't understand interest but I majored in math and accounting. If they're going to mess with someone's account maybe they should do it to someone with a less number-oriented education.
Most of these CSRs earn pretty low wages and I'd hazard a guess that many do not have degrees either. What seems like a simple accounting issue, and really it should be, becomes something akin to explaining phsyics to a chimpanzee.
The CSR's motivation is to get you out of their collection queue and/or to do the least amount of work possible to satisfy you which is why you have to speak to a supervisor and keep asking for someone that comprehends the issue and how to resolve it.