I graduated from a Tech school in December 2005. I have three private loans from Sallie Mae. Ive had several; forbearance on the private loans and have paid the processing fees to do so every six months. My account has been in overall good status since I graduated.
As of now Ive run out of the total allowed forbearance. My payments for the three private loans exceed $500.00 dollars a month and are unbearable. I have been trying to work something out with Sallie Mae since June of 2008 to consolidate my private loans because of now Im only paying interest payments, and not toward the actual debt I owe. The representatives on the phone they either hang up on you transfer you back into the hold queue or give out wrong information one of them told me as of June Sallie Mae has put a freeze on consolidation without reason and he had no idea why and recommended I find a bank or someone to help me consolidate because Sallie Mae will not help anyone in the private loan repayment consolidation nightmare.
Im contacting Dateline because this is a breach of contract in my humble opinion. When I was approved for these loans in my agreement it says Im able to consolidate, now that I want too Im being told I cant now. Two of my loans are 12% and the other is 15% interest only to make a grand total of $28, 426.34. The consumers need help; I dont know what else to do at this point. My loans are in good standing and I have a late fee of $157.47 to catch up, however the underlying point is the actions are unjust that Sallie Mae has broken our contract agreement and I dont know who to reach out too! This is unfair and I hope dateline or consumer affairs will start an investigation on this matter. I know I have documentation stating I could consolidate the private loans, and this agreement has been modified by Sallie Mae and I had no knowledge of this until recently. This is totally unfair and could possibly make me lose everything I have except my apartment I rent. Help!
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/sallie_mae.html
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
SallieMae told me that I could have a fixed rate and they gave me something I could afford for a few months. Now they call me back and say I dont meet the requirements for the extended repayment plan. My monthly amount went from $350-$517. Who in todays world can afford that.
I think they are hurting and trying to get as much money as possible. I am with you on the dateline. I am about to enlist for a few years just so our piece of crap government has to eat it.
Guess what? I just had the same problem today when discussing options for my daughters private sallie mae loans. When I signed up, we had the right to consolidate, now we dont. The only thing we can afford is the foreberance fee's.
I agree, the ungodly $500 per month payment schedules are just rediculous. What kid right out of college can afford that?
Come on Sallie Mae, stop screwing the younger generation after they worked so hard for 4 years getting an education so they wouldnt be a burden on society and collect welfare.
IF there are any class action lawsuits out there, I would like to know about them and sign up.
I feel your pain gentlemen I took out a 15, 000 dollar loan with Sallie Mae and there rate are sky high.
I have the same issue i took out a 18k private loan to pay for college tuition and after speaking to sallie mae they tell me there is nothing they can do as this was a option and now the option is not offered even though i had a contract with them when i took out the loan i have many issues as i have two other lender and for some reason they can consollidate all the loans for me except the sallie mae one as it is a private loan i am not sure what to do does any one have advice or did anyone move forward with a lawsuit i to will support any type of lawsuit as this is not right. They directed my call to somewhere in India and the individual on the line stated there is nothing they can do and he said he can lower the payments but the payment would only go to intrest not principal and he cant consollidtae i emailed sallie mae about this matter as well and they didnt even respond its not right i feel betrayed here in this situation i might have to default on the loan as im not sure how to lower payments. As i just graduated im just truying to get buy and a 1000.00 or more loan payment a month is a killer.
I was able to consolidate my 4 sallie mae loans into 1 loan, but I feel that they hurried it to avoid the fed's drop in interest rate. I was consolidating in the June/July time period of this year with a co-signer. I called a sallie mae rep, as things were taking some time. The guy was nice and told me that things were moving along, and even mentioned that it would probably be finalized after the interest rate drop which would have lowered my payments some. He also said that I would be needing to fax in a copy of my pay stub, and a few other papers, and my co-signer would have to do the same before the application process could be completed.
Well, next thing I know, I get a letter saying that my consolidation loan was disbursed and that my 4 sallie mae loans were paid off. I then had to start re-paying on those loans. This was all done just a few days before the actual interest rate drop, and neither I nor my co-signer ever faxed in those papers that I was told they would need. Now, I have been paying my loan each month just to avoid the wrath of sallie mae, but I am curious if they have done something wrong in hurrying my loan (I suspect that there is). Can they actually complete a loan application and disperse it without all the proper papers needed?
I was expected to pay over $1000/month upon the end of my post-graduation grace period. I have never heard of anything like this in all my life, from anyone I've spoken to. Luckily, I was able to consolidate and get my payments DOWN to about $715/month. I made all of my payments on time and even overpaid many months; I was laid off last week. Sallie Mae is denying me the right to file for deferment or forbearance; no matter how much unemployment I collect, I will not be able to make rent, credit card bills, or student loan payments to them, not to mention afford COBRA or living expenses like groceries and utilities.
How can someone who lost their job due to the economy be expected to make such payments? How can no concessions be made? They can't alleviate my financial crisis for 1 year? 6 months? 3 months?
I need any help I can get; I'm desperate.
My situation is similar to everyone's that I have read on here. It is ashamed how we are being treated and all we wanted to do was get a good education, unfortunately we couldn't afford to do it without taking out loans. I will never let any of my family or friends take a loan with them they are the worst company ever.
Question...has anyone started a legal proceeding against SallieMae, if so can you email me the telephone number and address to the lawyer.
I'm in the same boat. I have 4 private loans and 5 federal loans w/ salllie mae. My federal loan payment isn't that much only 170 a month on the other hand my private loan is $778.21 a month and b/c these two loans can't be consolidated together the monthly payment is almost $1000 every month. I don't make that kind of money right out of college. Based on the repayment schedule they have me on at the end of my paymet which will be around 2025 will be over $160, 000 that is way more than what I took out to begin with. My repayment starts next month and I don't know what to do I CAN'T pay that much. The only option I have for the private loans is to pay interest only for 2-4 years then the rate jumps up. I really don't want to do interest only since its not applied to the overall rate. I'm going to go talk to my bank tomorrow about this. When I first signed on these loans I was told that they have plenty of options for repayment blah blah blah. If you look at the repayment options that list all the different types they offer, none of them say they are for one loan or the other except for the first 2 or 3. I have been under the impression that I can do income based payments on all my loans...after talking w/ Sallie Mae today this is not the case. Income based is only for federal loans. I find this very very misleading and now I'm stuck and don't know what to do. HEEEELP!
I have several private loans from SallieMae. When I graduated I consolidated all of loans (including Federal) with SallieMae. When I consolidated, I was expected one single interest rate, however that is not true. I have three different interest rate. My loans total was a little over $47, 000 with all the interest rates by the end of 20 years I will be paying over $79, 000. I have been lucky and been able to pay my monthly payments. However, I do not agree that I have to pay so much interest. I checked my payments and pretty much all of it is going to interest. But every three months, I get more interest put onto my account and I am back to where I started
I feel everyone's pain on this topic "Sallie Mae" I created a donate site please visit and help me
http://bailmeoutfromsalliemae.com/
Regards,
Mona
My experience was the same. I am currently paying $750/mo. to Sallie Mae and another $213/mo. to the government. It's seriously ruining my life
Federal government better do something very quickly because the classes graduating right now and in the near future have very few employment opportunities, the ones that are available are half of what they were 5 years ago, will not be consuming anything, will not be paying taxes, and our government is looking for a debt ceiling while Exxon and GE make billions of dollars and pay no taxes. America has one foot in the grave, and the other coming up as we fall deeper and deeper into that great abyss. Our congress cannot even formulate a budget and the one that they have put together will throw this country billions and trillions of dollars further down the tubes, yet we fight wars on three 0r four fronts, spend billions to protect South Korea, and support a global economy that left us holding the financial bag. China laughs at us and continually scams the global economy. We educate students from other countries virtually free when we cannot educate our own. They take the education back their country to use against us and our kids cannot get one to even use without going full blow into debt.