If you plan to go to school once in America-watch out!

[zethris 0]

Aside from my visa journey and the IMBRA processing, here is my other hell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPv-zQTgZmA

[KarenCee 3]

Wish I had something to tell you...have you tried talking to a lawyer? Legal Aid? Hope you get this resolved.

[meauxna 15]

z,

Beat feet to www.clarkhoward.com and read everything he's got on student loans and refinancing.

Schedule a time to call his team after you've done your homework.

[zethris 0]

I will, thanks guys for your support. I would really like to get the word out about this as much as possible. It's sabotage.

[dalegg 143]

When I first get out of the army I wanted to get into the telecommunications industry so I enrolled in a school that advertised just that. I had no money because I spent my army college money on a drum set so they enrolled me in a student loan program.

After a few weeks I started seeing that this school was a fraud and it's main goal was to solicite government loans. During the class the instructors would actually give us the answers to all of the questions before the test. It was necassary to keep all students passing so they would continue to receive their funds. Once, our instructor actually left in the middle of class to go to another job interview. That was pretty much the last straw for me. I walked out of the class disgusted, but worried that I would have to pay back this loan. To my suprise, the school had dropped all record of my enrollment and I never had to pay a thing. I'm thinking it was because I had a perfect grade until the point that I dropped out and they thought it would be suspicous to report this, but I'll never know.

[Kajikit 65]

There are a LOT of scams out there when it comes to education Our neighbour just about got railroaded into one of them - she wanted to do a book-keeping course in the evening to improve her employability and the 'course advisor' pushed her into signing up for this incredibly expensive loan (like 6-8 hours a week tuition for six months is really worth $20,000!) Fortunately she came to her senses almost as soon as she got home, and she was able to withdraw from the course (and the loan) rather than getting stuck with it!

I'm sorry you got done

[rebeccajo 14]

Did you borrow this money? Or not? If you did then you have to pay it back.

[BJZags 17]

Not sure why you call Sallie Mae a scam. You know exactly what you are getting into if you read the terms of the agreement before you sign on the dotted line. Before I went to law school, I knew exactly what my monthly payment would be based upon the amount and number of loans I took. It's a big chunk of change every month, but I knew that going into the situation. It's a good thing I was fortunate enough to find study employment, many of my classmates were not so lucky. Financing an education is always a gamble. Can't get a job without a degree, but can't get a degree without a loan, that's the catch-22 that many of us face.

[j&js 0]

I originally had my education loans with Sallie Mae as well and I did end up pretty angry about the way I was treated there and have since closed out the loan by borrowing from a home equity line and am paying that off instead. However, I would have to agree with some that if you read the contract carefully before borrowing your money, you should know what you are getting into.

My issue with Sallie Mae was that they charged me some bogus insurance fee of almost $400. I started to repay my loans while still in school to try and keep them manageable. By the August after I graduated I had paid over $1000 and still owed more then I originally borrowed, then I got notification of the insurance fee they were adding. I tried contacting them and they never really explained what that was all about and made it sound as if they could do a similiar thing in the future, so I got out. The loan never actually got to the repayment stage with me so I can't speak to them upping the rates or changing terms of the contract, but if they didn't do that, they didn't do anything wrong...

[Fandango 1,439]

Why are you complaining? You borrowed the money. Stop making excuses & drama...'they may as well kill me now'

YOU agreed to loan the money...you knew the rate...you knew the payment plan.....as per interest....erm, if you're late, your rate goes up.

You're blaming the school cos it was #######, Sally Mae, etc....you borrowed the money, you TOOK the money, so pay it back as YOU agreed to.

[zethris 0]

Did you borrow this money? Or not? If you did then you have to pay it back.

You know, you are very cut and dry, black and white about most things and usually it's down right perfect and spot on. But sometimes it really pisses me off. No offence, but going by this way about everything is why we are in the situation we are in, in the USA today. This kind of thinking allows companies like Sallie Mae to do what it is doing right before your very eyes.

Did you happen to view the video? Do you happen to know that this is primarily THE ONLY WAY TO GO TO SCHOOL? School is so expensive, that unless you are one of the privelaged few with parents who can pay all or part of your student expenses (I had none) and you had scholarships and grants to take care of the rest, you are getting a loan? 70% of all students MUST get a loan!

The loans you take, even with other companies who seem safe, are bought out without your permission by Sallie Mae at some point just like mine was. So it doesn't matter how careful you are. The money I did borrow, at 9% interest was about $25,000 less than they say I now owe in the principal. The tuition was $38,000. It's over $60,000, with lifetime payback of over $300,000. Plus at one point my interest was 27% when they had 17 loans open under one account to artificialy inflate my interest by decreasing my credit rating each time they opened a new loan. It is curently 18% because they have consolidated these 17 loans into 5, and my credit has rebounded slightly since.

I suggest watching the video. Then maybe see if you have the same opinion. If so, we are already in more trouble than I thought. Because you are not alone in this way of thinking. edit-as is aparent by the other ignorant posts already here.

Not sure why you call Sallie Mae a scam. You know exactly what you are getting into if you read the terms of the agreement before you sign on the dotted line. Before I went to law school, I knew exactly what my monthly payment would be based upon the amount and number of loans I took. It's a big chunk of change every month, but I knew that going into the situation. It's a good thing I was fortunate enough to find study employment, many of my classmates were not so lucky. Financing an education is always a gamble. Can't get a job without a degree, but can't get a degree without a loan, that's the catch-22 that many of us face.

Alright smartypants, I was told $400 per month. Far cry from the $1078+ Sallie Mae wants. I bet your loan is close to mine, but still not that high per month. My FICO score was over 800 when I started, they opened separate loans on purpose to push my credit risk higher and have an excuse to make the overall interest rate much higher and charge me upwards of almost $100 per day in interest for a period of time. I had a higher interest rate starting (9% rather than 5 or 6) because it was a larger ammount and I was applying on my own without a co-signer (thank God, or they would have taken my Mom's house), or so I was told. I don't have much to go on except the deception that was given to me. I didn't have time to do heavy research and "find the truth" about this loan company. Especially because I wasn't even dealing with Sallie Mae at first.

Edited August 21, 2006 by zethris

[vartan 0]

it is cut and dry .. this guy said he only needed 35k and they opened up 65k .. pay attention .. if you didn't want the other 30k then you shouldn't have taken it and used it.

Yes loans are bought out by other companies that is right.. but serious .. I am not commenting on your situation zethris but this guy .. sorry pay attention to what you borrowed.. its a loan .. subsidized and unsubsidized.. you agree to the loans when you get it..

Edited August 21, 2006 by vartan

[zethris 0]

I originally had my education loans with Sallie Mae as well and I did end up pretty angry about the way I was treated there and have since closed out the loan by borrowing from a home equity line and am paying that off instead. However, I would have to agree with some that if you read the contract carefully before borrowing your money, you should know what you are getting into.

My issue with Sallie Mae was that they charged me some bogus insurance fee of almost $400. I started to repay my loans while still in school to try and keep them manageable. By the August after I graduated I had paid over $1000 and still owed more then I originally borrowed, then I got notification of the insurance fee they were adding. I tried contacting them and they never really explained what that was all about and made it sound as if they could do a similiar thing in the future, so I got out. The loan never actually got to the repayment stage with me so I can't speak to them upping the rates or changing terms of the contract, but if they didn't do that, they didn't do anything wrong...

They change the terms of the contract by paying off congressment to make what was previously illegal, legal. Such as wage garnishment, Demanding of termination of employment, forfiture of Social Security Benefits (Which they have already taken) forfiture of any and all tax returns for the rest of your life (luckily I have witholding set at or around what my income would be taxed so I break about even), no other loan, or student loan comapny can do these things the only thing that is similar with the other student loan companies is that you can't file for bankruptcy to get out of it since too many people "abused" that to get out of it and making the government pay.... oh wait, they do anyways plus an additional 25% extra if I have to default.

These are not exaggerations, these are very real things. It has gotten so much worse since 2003 to get a student loan, no one is safe!

Why are you complaining? You borrowed the money. Stop making excuses & drama...'they may as well kill me now'

YOU agreed to loan the money...you knew the rate...you knew the payment plan.....as per interest....erm, if you're late, your rate goes up.

You're blaming the school cos it was #######, Sally Mae, etc....you borrowed the money, you TOOK the money, so pay it back as YOU agreed to.

I did not agree to the loan money, I agreed to the tuition ammount to be borrowed, not an extra $25k that came out of nowhere. I used a fraction of that because I disenrolled shortly after. Yet Sallie Mae claims they never recieved the funds back, and the school doesn't talk about tuition reimbursement.

You people are real rich, you know that. Seriously oblivious.

[vartan 0]

You people are real rich, you know that. Seriously oblivious.

Money doesnt just disapear.. there are tracks.. if you dont track where the money went then you can't complain.. Sallie Mae is charging for funds that were dispersed.. if the school doesn't show record of giving it back its the schools fault.. if the school shows they gave it back its sallies fault.. you must do something about it.

[zethris 0]

it is cut and dry .. this guy said he only needed 35k and they opened up 65k .. pay attention .. if you didn't want the other 30k then you shouldn't have taken it and used it.

Yes loans are bought out by other companies that is right.. but serious .. I am not commenting on your situation zethris but this guy .. sorry pay attention to what you borrowed.. its a loan .. subsidized and unsubsidized.. you agree to the loans when you get it..

I am not sure if you are referring to me or not. But I did not agree to the ammount they are saying I owe, I agreed to the ammount, and the interest rate, and the montly payment I was told when I signed the papers. Which is $43,000, 9% interest, and $400/mo. They have somehow come up with an additional $25k, and an extra 9% (at one point 17% more), and over $1078 per month, plus $150 payment processing fee each payment I make.

Furthermore, when I realized they were turning that school into a certification farm, rather than a credible school (they were on probation for about 3 months while I was there) and packed that school with students that had these loans which were either secretly already owned by Sallie Mae, or later to be sold to them, I quit after being there for 6 months out of 15. I disenrolled, and I signed a paper saying that the rest that is unused is to be put back. Sallie Mae claims they never recieved it.

Student loans can only be bought out by Sallie Mae without permission. No other loan company can buy out, without your permission, your loan unless it is stipulated within the contract that they can auto-consolidate your loans for you. Sallie Mae is the exception to that rule as they have legistlation to allow them to do that.

They can pay a loan company $5,000 or $10,000 to buy an account and make the person default based on the tax records showing how much they can afford per month, and pricing the monthly payment beyond that. Once someone like me defaults, they collect all they can from me, but saying over 80% of what they take go to "fee's" so that they can keep the principal unpaid as much as possible so that when they put me out of house and home and can't take anymore, they collect the remainder, (usually only a couple hundred dollars difference) from the government, plus a nice 25% extra.

There are no unsubsidized or subsidize loans outside of government stafford loans. Which don't pay more than a fraction of school tuition anymore. A growing number of us need to get student loans. Now more than ever. Tuition is through the roof, scholarships are harder to get because there are more of us as children of the babyboomers, and no matter what you do, if you are of a ceartain income level, Sallie Mae will poach your account like they did mine and attempt to almost kill you for the sake of making a few thousand dollars.

I don't have a credit card with more than a $200 limit for emergencies. Never have. I had perfect credit before. Always pay my bills on time. I have dealt with some stinky car loans (WFS financial is one example) but at least they were willing to work with you on your payments.

I have reason to believe that the reason I had trouble finding employment in Las Vegas in my line of work was because of my artificialy inflated credit risk. It is their goal to keep me out of a job, there are no forbearances if I don't have one like with a stafford loan. There is no grace period, if I am even a day late, I get hit with a $173 late fee. If I happen to send less than the current monthly payment, which can change at any time, even durring a pay period, they can reject my payment by sending the check back to me without further explanation, and force me into being late.

Earlier on, I tried sending what i had thought my payment was. The $400. The checks always came back, and I couldn't figure it out. Call the limited contacts I had, they were clueless. I just found out about how serious this was on Friday because I had checked an e-mail address I hadn't used in 2 years and a bill just happened to be in the inbox with some bogus home address that never existed. Yet they have it on my credit report as a place of residence so they can say they have made all efforts to contact me.

Listen carefully everyone, this is not a game, this is not an overreaction. These people are worse than any legitamit loan company out there. Worst than any home loan, car loan, credit card account you could possibly open. They are worse, short of the guns, knives, and baseball bats than loan sharks!

Look, read http://studentloanjustice.org/ and read the victims area for other stories that sound surprisingly similar to mine. Many didn't even do business directly with Sallie Mae, like me. I am not a loan officer to know all the in's and out's and random laws passed that would have made me not want to sight what I initially thought was a very reasonable loan at first.

I plead with you people to find the merit in this complaint, and stop summarily dismissing it out of whatever prejudice you may have that is allowing these people to do this to us. This is a real serious issue, for a growing number of people. Most likely our future children. I am terrified of what my brother will have to do, because even if he does great in school, which I know he will, he wont get enough from schollarships to pay for college by the time he goes.