Dept of Ed Nightmare

[gabaergic1]

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So if you sign up for IBR, every year you are supposed to verify your income (proof of income).

If you sign up for electronic correspondence, you're supposed to get a notification reminding you.

If you're busy or don't get the notification, God help you. This is where dealing with govt rather than private bank really really sucks...Read on.

Background: Paid all my payments on time. Next payment due Feb 28 2013. Request for annual proof of income received January 2013. They automatically switched me to the Standard repayment plan with 5 grand being due until they got my proof of income. Fine.

Here's the kicker, they tell you your ONLY option (to avoid paying 5 grand) is to go into forbearance during this period. Why you ask? Because it allegedly takes them 2 months to process your proof of income.

This was an outright lie. They actually processed my proof of income within a week and said $450 was now due. They even admitted to me that it took a week and then gave me some story of how the billing cycles work that they can't apply the $450 before April...Also a lie.

The nice part? They added $10000 (ten thousand) to my principle as capitalized interest because of the forebearance that they forced me to enter on Feb. 7 2013 (because I couldn't pay 5 grand and SUPPOSEDLY it was going to take 2 months to process my proof of income).

When I called customer service they basically said "sorry, nothing we can do. it's interest that you owe from your original accrued amount, 10,000 of which we are now adding to your principle. write general correspondence"

When I called the second time, the girl said, "you don't need to be in forbearance until April. I can change it to show that you already owe $450 in March. Also, I don't see why interest was capitalized in January 2013 when your forbearance was place in February 2013. Let me put in a request for them to look it over. Cant make any promises."

I'm horrified. Can you imagine if this was like American Express? Or some other private company doing this? And who am I going to sue?

 

[Igor4sugry]

I hear your pain. I have half of loans trhough Direct Loans (i.e. the gov) and other half through private bank.

I was in similar situation. Their customer service is slow and less efficient. I had to fax and mail multiple copies of proof of income to make sure things were received. If you call and ask the same qeustion, chances are you will get compeltely differen answers based on who you talk to (as was your experience). Customer service people seem to act as if its a summer job, and are not helpful. Overall a very frustrating process.

When dealing with private bank its compeltely different story; they are professional, efficient; accountable.

The best one is SalieMae because you can upload documents online.

I think the only way to get around this situation when they switch you to Standard Repayment is to wait it out as long as you can and not do Forebearance hoping that your application gets processed in time. Or just submit it 3months early. You can also hang up and call again hoping to get someone more knowledgeble on the phone.

Did you mail or fax your proof of income?

 

[gabaergic1]

I faxed proof of income.
It got processed within a week.
When I very first applied for IBR, it took months.
I just detest that I was lied to about having to
enter forbearance due to "processing time and
billing cycles"...
And then for 10,000 dollars to be added to my principle
after one week of forbearance? AND one rep telling
me it incorrectly included january when I wasn't even
in forbearance in January but "no promises?"
While the other rep told me it was interest from my original med school to residency
forbearance (though that is NON cap forbearance and I applied for ibr right away
as an intern)...then a supervisor with a computerized voice is rude to me, cuts me
off, tells me to write or fax gen correspondence.