Like everyone else and their mother, I have student loans. I’m rocking a Stafford loan that I owe around $6,000 on and a Parent PLUS for $4,000. Expected payoff date: Who knows. I’ve handled the extra cash I receive from refunds pretty well – I even sent most of it back as payments. On July 8th, I made a $1,000 payment to help reduce interest charges. Two weeks later and there’s no record that any payment was ever processed:
That’s not cool, so I call up My Fed Loan Servicing. Not the most creative name, but it works I guess. After holding for an unacceptable amount of time, I had the dumbest conversation of my life.
Me: “I made a payment on the 8th of July for $1,000 that isn’t showing up.”
Phone Rep: “Let me look into your account, one second…..OK, I am showing that payment on my screen.”
Me: “So why can’t I see it?”
Phone Rep: “Well, any funds returned 120 days after a disbursement are considered a cancellation payment and don’t show up.”
Me: “Then why can I see 2 previous cancellation payments?”
Phone Rep: “I’m not entirely sure.”
Me: “Well this makes it just about impossible to keep track of what I actually owe…”
Phone Rep: “I agree completely and I believe they’re working on a way to let borrowers see all payments made.”
Me: “Yeah, they should get on that. Thanks.”
What kind of company is this? Their only purpose is to manage student loans and collect payments. How hard is it to actually, you know, manage the loans?!? Right now I’m being told I owe $4,100. I have no idea if that’s actually the correct amount. My net worth update from June, before the payment was made, says I owed around $5,200. So a $1,000 payment in July does seem to match with the new balance.
Still, not showing all payments is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of. Over 4 years of school, it’d be extremely easy to lose track of how many payments you made and good luck getting a straight answer out of the people you sent the money to.
Do you have any student loan horror stories? Mine isn’t really all that bad, but it’s still frustrating. Let’s hear ‘em!
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Strangely, the screen you’ve showed looks like many of the payments actually increased the balances? Or was there money disbursed between payments that shows up in a different place?
Anyway, keep track of your balance and make sure it’s right. However, what it sounds like they did is applied the payment as a reduction to the amount disbursed, which would (should?) mean that they’re not charging you any interest for having that $1000 for however long you had it. Which is peanuts, but still a bonus.