Comments on: Sallie Mae Can Mail Letters Afterall, Just not to companies! http://www.imjosh.com/salliemae/2007/03/24/sallie-mae-can-mail-letters-afterall-just-not-to-companies/ Exposing the incompetence of a student loan company Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:12:06 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Karen http://www.imjosh.com/salliemae/2007/03/24/sallie-mae-can-mail-letters-afterall-just-not-to-companies/comment-page-1/#comment-2313 Karen Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:49:49 +0000 http://www.imjosh.com/salliemae/2007/03/24/sallie-mae-can-mail-letters-afterall-just-not-to-companies/#comment-2313 Federal loans and Private loans are very different. For federal Stafford loans, the government regulates those, and few banks will consolidate those now. Your only option may be the federal government (Direct Loans). You fill out an application to consolidate with your new lender and the new lender requests the official payoff info be sent to them. You have nothing to do with the payoff amounts for your federal loans other than what you put in the consolidation application. Private loans are credit based and your interest rate is tied to your credit rating. If you can add a cosigner you usually get a better interest rate than if you consolidate on your own. Because of legal privacy issues, your lender will not send a payoff amount to another lender. You have to advised your lender of the payoff amount. Call your existing lender and get either a 30 or 45 day payoff amount to take into consideration all of the interest that will accrue until your consolidation is complete. It's going to be hard to find a lender willing to consolidate private education loans at this time because of market conditions. I hope your loans are federal! Federal loans and Private loans are very different. For federal Stafford loans, the government regulates those, and few banks will consolidate those now. Your only option may be the federal government (Direct Loans). You fill out an application to consolidate with your new lender and the new lender requests the official payoff info be sent to them. You have nothing to do with the payoff amounts for your federal loans other than what you put in the consolidation application.

Private loans are credit based and your interest rate is tied to your credit rating. If you can add a cosigner you usually get a better interest rate than if you consolidate on your own. Because of legal privacy issues, your lender will not send a payoff amount to another lender. You have to advised your lender of the payoff amount. Call your existing lender and get either a 30 or 45 day payoff amount to take into consideration all of the interest that will accrue until your consolidation is complete. It’s going to be hard to find a lender willing to consolidate private education loans at this time because of market conditions. I hope your loans are federal!

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