Loans suck!

[hlmauera]

I found out on Thursday that my Federal financial aid loans have been moved to a new company. This is annoying in and of itself, but then I found out that they consider my payment this month late because it went to the previous company. Erm...if you don't send out notification of the change until January 31st (I checked the post mark) how do you expect us to make payments to you by the 5th of the month? They are supposed to be forwarding the payments but it still ticks me off that they count it as a late payment. Quit messing with my credit rating!

My mother has been making the payments on my loan until I pay off my loan to Dad. The good news is that I will have that done in 4 months time! Excellent! The bad news is we sat down and figured out how long I would be paying on my school loans at the minimum payment amount (well actually about $13 more but that's negligible). At the 3.51% interest rate it would take me more than 20 years to pay off the $51,500 left on the loan with the accruing interest. This, of course, is not happy news, so mom and I started brain storming. I will take over my loans in 5 months. I will be paying $113 more than the minimum payment. Mom said she would continue paying the $300 she's been paying for at least a year and maybe more, finances depending. With those payments for a year, we could get the time line back down to about 10 years. It's still a really long flipping time. So, if I get a raise any time soon, it looks like I need to apply a good portion of that to the loan in order to not be paying on it for the rest of my life. *sigh*

Life! If it's not chickens it's feathers!

Comments

[snortinsnorrie.livejournal.com]

Be very, very careful about your student loans. There are several scams out there that hide in the mess of loan resales, which is what happens when your loan is suddenly with another company. Talk to them and get everything in writing. If a company contacts you to say they now have the loan and better yet, that your payment is late because you weren't notified. Ask them to provide the written back up and proof that the loan is now with them. Talk to your old company and confirm that the loan has been sold, or moved and have them confirm the new company, and contact information. Again, in writing.

With the new company talk to a supervisor and ask them to remove the late fee as they failed to inform you properly of the change. If there is no paper trail, continue to send your payments to the old company.

Never, never give out your soc. sec. number to anyone claiming to hold your loan. At most, they should be asking for only the last 4 digits to confirm your identity. If this turns out to be a scam, set up additional security with the company that holds the loan so that any further contact from them can be ID confirmed. Have them tell you something like a pets name...

Final advice, consolidate your loan with the Government Program. I think it is the William Ford, Federal Direct Loan Program. Then it won't be sold and the interest rate is controlled.

[hlmauera.livejournal.com]

I checked with my previous lender by logging in to my account and it shows the balance paid in full. It was a Federal Direct Loan so it obviously can be transfered.

MOHELA hasn't charged any late fees yet. They are listed as a reputable lender with the Federal Government. I think it's legit it's just super annoying.