Back in the summer, I applied for student loans like millions of other students. One of the loans I took out was the Stafford. The interest on part of this loan is paid by the federal government while I’m in school. There’s a limit to how much you can borrow with the Stafford though, so my dad borrowed with a Parent Plus loan to fill in the gap.
After filling out all the the paperwork, I received a letter in the mail a week later explaining the terms of my loan and a master promissory note. This note thing is real important – it’s the legal contract that says you’ll pay back the lender. Once you sign it, you’re on the hook for repayment.
I skimmed (mistake!) over the form and started filling it out. This is the US Government and they process millions of these everyday, I think they know what they’re doing. Right? Right?!?
Wrong. I’m halfway done when I notice something. This is a Parent Plus loan, so my dad’s social security number should be listed as the borrower instead of mine. It’s not. Somehow, the U.S. Department of Education switched out my social with my dad’s. Or maybe I typed in the wrong number. I’m not sure which, but regardless, someone somewhere f’ed up.
Fortunately, I called the loan people and they were able to fix it and I didn’t have to make a late payment to the university (this all happened about 2 weeks before the quarter started!). I’m not sure how big of a problem this could have caused. It’s possible I just would have become legally responsible for the Parent PLUS loan instead of my dad or maybe it would have screwed up my future student loans. Or maybe upon graduation, I could have gotten my loans discharged because the information wan’t correct (yeah, right!).
Two of those scenarios don’t seem that bad, while one would kinda suck. I guess I could have taken my chances, but getting it fixed seemed to be the smart thing to do. I’ve definitely been reading financial documents with more focus since that day!
Have you ever had typos or just plain wrong information appear on important documents? Any sneaky fine print you missed? Did you have a mix up thanks to the Department of Education?
