Like many others, a few months back I was stuck in the US Dept of Education's rehabilitation nightmare, where I had succesfully met 9 months worth of payments (this happened in Dec of '11) but yet they couldn't process rehabs due to a "system issue". I eventually rehabbed in February of 2012, and paid off the remainder of my loan in March through them (the loan never transferred to a 3rd party service). They confirmed I was paid in full, and due to their imcompetence, I even called in a week later to make sure my payment had posted, and didn't owe them any more money. They confirmed, and I went on my way. Occasionally, I would even call back in and ask for a "paid in full" letter to be sent, but that never came until May 30, 2012.
Today, I received a letter from Sallie Mae, saying that my federal loans were being picked up. They gave me amounts that were equal to my account balance before I ever started rehab (around $7000 or so). I was furious, and immediately called the DOE and asked them to explain themselves.
The first contact insisted that all that happened was that I was rehabbed, and now I had to start making payments to Sallie Mae. I quickly jumped on their website (myeddebt.com) and began reading off my payments. After putting me on hold twice, she realized there was a mistake, and forwarded me to her supervisor.
The second lady said the same thing about still owing a balance, but after reading back my balances back to her over and over. I told her I had a "final" payment confirmation, and also a paid in full letter for the department of education. After half an hour of getting more and more frustrated, she admitted that somehow a mistake was made, and an "investigation" would be launched into the issue. She then asked me to call back in several days to follow up and see if this has been fixed.
Here's my thought...if ANY entity should have their Mod Cut it should be the federal government branch who manages dollar amounts on student loans. Also, why must *I* be the one to follow up with them, if they are the ones who made such a grevious error? There appears to be ZERO oversight on these people whatsoever, and there is no one to contact to get my loans fixed. There's no way these guys will ever be able to properly fix my account.
Makes me wish there was some sort of class-action lawsuit out there against the federal government. I've wasted hours upon hours of my time trying to fix their mistakes, and they still do not have it right.
