Pulling together one dollar a month extra (204 dollars total over the life of the loan) and paying it to principal saves me 2 months of payoff, netting a $710.13 savings. Just for squeezing out four quarters a month. Noodling up an extra 50 bucks a month makes a huge difference. I intend to pay this off by September 1, 2008 and the journey so far has been intense. But even if I don’t make it, I will be leaps ahead, and will save thousands of dollars for the effort. Makes doing without take out coffee, selling off old textbooks, and scrounging change worth it.

Check out her site for information on calculators and the decreased life of her loan based on even 1 dollar more per month.

Micropay Your Way To Student Loan Freedom

A recent follow up on Micropayments to Sallie Mae

This is great and all however, 1 million won’t put many students through school without leaving a gap which will need to be made up for with loans, and who will be there to rob these kids blind with thier uncaring enterprise funded by your tax dollars? Sallie Mae will! 1 million is a lot for myself and for most of you, however when you pay your CEO 3.3 million I would think you could scrap up a few more dollars to endow a program in Texas. The problem is the more Sallie Mae covers the less students need toborrow from them. Essentially this “donation” is advertising with a Tax Break.

Nice try Sallie, but too little…too late!

Amber called Sallie Mae tonite with much dismay and spoke to Ken.  He said that we should be recieving 2 letters in the next 7-10 days one with the payoff amounts for our federal loans and one with payoff amounts for our private loans.  God help us if someone at Sallie Mae has forgotten how to stamp an envelope.

My next step is to contact my congressman, Mike Oxley, and ask for his assistance.

After that I should involve a lawyer, to communicate with Sallie Mae.

I am going to be Calling Mike Oxley’s office this afternoon to try and get that ball rolling and We are going to try and have an attorney write a letter to Sallie Mae, either one Amber’s parents know or one who is a part of ABLE, which provides income based legal advice in the NW Ohio area.

I am currently dealing with the relentlessness of Sallie Mae, much to my frustration. When you tell them you can’t afford payments, and request forbearances, they ask you for more money. Ummm, I thought that was the point of a FORBEARANCE. Just a couple of weeks ago, they threatened me with wage garnishment, and like a fool, I made a payment to get them out of my hair (over $400), which put me in a slight crunch financially.

The way Sallie Mae treats its customers is deplorable, and I have yet to hear any kind words about the company. They call any time of day, usually early in the morning (I guess they don’t think people sleep). When I thought my loan was consolidated by another company (XPress Loan Servicing, who is MUCH more understanding and professional), Sallie Mae turns right around and tells me that the loans were NOT consolidated, and they never received any word of it. Why the whistle hasn’t been blown on their practices is beyond me. Sallie Mae does nothing but bully the customers, and leave us feeling helpless. There is no way in Hell this can be legal, or can it?

Brandon is having almost the same problem, Sallie Mae won’t release his loans, which is illegal. They are also calling him at what appears to be all hours of the day. Check out our post about Sallie Mae’s aggressive debt collection for links to your rights when a debt collector is calling you.

Good Advice and Humor:

“Don’t be short-sighted. Consolidating your student loans will lengthen your repayment term, creating a long-term relationship with your lender, so it’s important to also consider lenders that can offer flexible repayment options, life-of-loan servicing, and a single point of contact,” says Scherschel.

Good

• Warning students about bad lenders
• Noting that a consolidation lengthens the payment period

Bad

• Sallie Mae is as flexible as an arthritic osteoporothis ridden old man.
• Sallie Mae will provide life of loan servicing, they will have your loan until you die.
• Sallie Mae cannot provide a single point of contact, each call no matter if it is your 1st or 50th regarding the same problem nets you another person with no vested interest in solving your problem.  From our experience it is ussualy someone who has half a grasp on the english language as well, which doesn’t work when your job is to deal with angry english speaking student loan borrowers.

Sallie Mae Cautions Students about Lender Practices, Irony not Lost

Hello,

For over a year my wife has been trying to consolidate our federal loans away from Sallie Mae in order to take advantage of a lower interest rate.  Sallie Mae has refused on many occasions to send the payoff amounts and information to Americna Education Services, who we are consolidating with.  We cannot get a contact at Sallie Mae who does anything other than transfer us and make empty promises.  We have written down many of the numerous times we have contacted them.

We also are trying to consolidate my wife’s private loans away from Sallie Mae in order to get away from a 13% interest rate on several of her loans.  We are consolidating these with Wells Fargo.  Today we received a call from Wells Fargo telling us that Sallie Mae would not release our payoff amount.  Being no stranger to this, we called Sallie Mae and were told first that the letter had been sent, then that we could not consolidate to Wells Fargo from Sallie Mae, by the same person.  After several more phone calls, we were given several different answers none of which could help us.  The call log is available on my Sallie Mae website, http://www.imjosh.com/salliemae/2007/03/14/sallie-mae-doesnt-allow-consolidation-to-wells-fargo/

So far no one can help us, we make our payments on time and are fed up with the treatment of us by Sallie Mae.  It is a disgrace that this company is taking advantage of today’s youth.

Thank you for reading this and I hope you have the time to lend your assistance.

Josh and Amber Smith

The rep (female no name recorded) just told my wife we cannot consolidate to Wells Fargo, the same rep told her before this that they had already sent the payoff letter.

Time to get back on the phone.

My Call records for the night.

Wed mar 14th 6:05
Caller: Shawn
ID:

No Restrictions on who you can consolidate loans to.

6:08 Transfer to Consolidation Dept

Caller: Renee

6:11 Transfer to Private Consolidation

loop of Voice Menus at Whisper Volume

6:14
Caller: Katie

“No idea”

6:19
1888-272-5543
Caller: Matt

Transfer to Consolidation Specialist

6:21
Caller: Mellisa

Consolidations to Federal Loans

You should be able to consolidate away.

Need to talk to a supervisor, in main department. Call in the morning because the Supervisors all go home earlier in the day.

6:31
Amber Goes back to the phone with the mission of getting a payoff amount and giving me permission to speak to Sallie Mae on her behalf.

Caller: Nadia

Transferred to Private Dept.

Caller: Ben or Bet Alfred

Sallie Mae cannot send a payoff amount to Wells Fargo because of Privacy issues.

Sallie Mae also has no ability to note on an account that another person may speak on behalf of the loan holder, according to Alfred.

Alfred was able to tell my wife her payoff amounts and promised to send a letter to her.

That ends the phone calls for tonite, tommorow I need to try to speak to a supervisor, as well as reach someone who can actualy do something at Sallie Mae, Bonus Points for grasping the English Language.

So now we have to do the dance between companies to get this money transferred.  If anyone out there is an attourney looking to sue Sallie Mae drop me a line.