Sallie Mae Bank

Review: I set up an automatic draft payment through their website for more than the minimum amount due. I have also attempted to make additional monthly payments up to $400.00 I have never received a call or letter stating that my account was not in good standing nor did I have any reason to believe my payments were not being made until 6/5/15 when an account manager called my phone from Sallie Mae telling me I had never made a payment and that my account was under final review. I have emails from them thanking me for my payment so I assumed they were being paid. I also received an email alert from another company telling me my credit score had changed. I have in good faith attempted to pay them, they however have not made any attempt to tell me that they have never received any payment. I also have statements with a lower balance reflected. My credit score has been damaged and I have been financially penalized because of errors in their automatic and online bill pay system, including late fees and "returned check fees" When looking back on the payment history I then noted a series of "payments" and "payment reversals" I did not reverse any payment paid to them my checking account has had available funds.Desired Settlement: I want my credit score restored, I also want them to remove any negative credit history they may have reported to any and all credit agencies. I want any and all late fees removed, and I want any additional interest accrued due to the additional late fees credited to my account. I also want all returned check fees credited to my account when I set up the payments their system never alerted me to the fact that account information may be wrong in their system, which if it is I am unaware (still)

Business

Response:

Thank you for

your message. In the interest of protecting the privacy of our customers,

the Office of the Customer Advocate responded directly to the customer via US

Postal Service on June 22, 2015. Please allow sufficient time for postal

delivery.

Review: My problems did not start until the business split into two companies.

I tried making payments on the new site and put in the bank account information. Month one: it works and the payment went through. Month two: I use the SAME EXACT INFO that was saved on the largest loan and the payment fails and they put a return check fee on the account. Month three: I had to log on to realize what happened, no warning or explanation on what happened. Meanwhile my second/smallest loan went through fine. I made another payment with the saved info, that I know already works because of the first payment that went through. Guess what? payment went through on both loans with the EXACT INFO. Month 4: Payment does not goes through to loan on the saved info. At this point I am confused. Month 5-present: still playing the hit or miss game with them and even with large payments to the largest loan, the check return fee and loss of payments has made it so the money owed is larger than the loan I first started with. SAME EXACT INFO THAT WAS SAVED ON THE SITE! Meanwhile, the smallest loan is fine with the SAME INFO. I tried writing and sending a check, no one gets the check. I tried calling to pay on the phone; I either get hung up on or there is no payment done. These aren't the minimum payments, these are payments that pay almost half the loan. When doing the math, they are basically robbing me in the long run.Desired Settlement: Remove the check return fees and fix the payment and billing methods.

Business

Response:

Thank you for

your message. In the interest of protecting the privacy of our customers,

the Office of the Customer Advocate responded directly to the customer via US

Postal Service on February 5, 2015. Please allow sufficient time for postal

delivery.

Review: I cosigned on a loan and have been getting called in excess of 3 times a day for the past 2 weeks by an automated message. I cannot connect to a customer service representative through this call; the call is automated, claiming to be a "Lisa Clark" and instructing me to call back before disconnecting. I looked at the loan and the payment is not more than 2 weeks late, totaling $41.02. The calls take place at all times of day, as early as 8am and as late as 9pm, during weekends and weekdays. This behavior is completely unacceptable. I have not been contacted by a living person and cannot contact one through the call. This needs to stop.Desired Settlement: "Stop contacting me" is unlikely since I have a service with them. I just want them to contact me professionally, within reason, and with a living person.

Business

Response:

Thank you for

your message. In the interest of protecting the privacy of our customers,

the Office of the Customer Advocate responded directly to the customer via US

Postal Service on January 14, 2015. Please allow sufficient time for postal

delivery.

Review: Hello,

I needed to change my automatic payments for Sallie Mae. I entered my bank information and everything on the screen indicated that it was processed. There was no notice of a delay in the payment (though I made it weeks in advance of my payment anyway). I then called their support center when I realized my payments didn't go through. The agent assured me that she processed a payment for both accounts and that I would receive no late payment charge nor would it reflect negatively against my credit. I checked a day later and there was no pending payments on either account and I had late payment charges. I usually pay $25 per account and the charges were $40 (though there was also no itemized list of what I was paying). Their practices are unethical because I had attempted to set up auto payments and call their center and they still wouldn't take my payment correctly. They also failed to notify me of what I was paying for.Desired Settlement: I would like them to remove the late charges, prevent the negative score from going to the credit agencies, and for them to ensure my auto payments will be authorized as they said they would be.

Business

Response:

Spoke to the customer over the phone. Advised her that there are no late fees on either of her accounts and that she is set up for auto pay. Customer said she had realized this as well after contacted the Revdex.com, however felt our new website was confusing and not user friendly. She also said the first time she called customer service about this, she received little help. Apologized for this and told her we are working to improve our website and I made sure she had the number to reach my department directly. Customer also asked what her payments will be after her grace period ends. We provided the customer with these amounts. Customer was satisfied.

Review: We switched banks recently and so we called Sallie Mae on April 1 and canceled our auto-debit loan payments with the old bank, and switched to the new bank. They told us that for the remaining payments in the month of April, we would need to pay manually, and then the auto debit would start up in May. They also told us that the auto-debit payments from our old bank would end immediately. We then cleared out our old checking account and wrote a letter requesting that the bank close the account. They called us a few days later and told us that they could not because we were overdrawn. We found out that Sallie Mae had failed to cancel our auto-debits with the old bank, and that they had withdrawn the $192.14 payment after we cleared out our account. This incurred an overdraft fee of $31. We had also already made the loan payment manually from our new account, so we payed the full amount twice.We called Sallie Mae and asked them to repay the amount to our old bank and pay for the overdraft fee. They admitted they were responsible for the mistake and agreed to do so. They asked for a transaction history to be faxed to them to show the incorrect charge and the overdraft fee. We had this done by our old bank, but they never repayed either the payment or the overdraft fee. We called them several more times and they have now repayed the original payment but not the overdraft fee. On top of this, the overdraft fee is applied every 5 days, so that amount has now been charged repeatedly.We called our bank and they agreed to stop the overdraft fees at $93, and we have sent them a check so that the overdraft fees will stop accruing. We looked through our phone records and found that, from the first time to the present, we have called Sallie Mae five times about this issue, totaling 3.5 hours on the phone. Repeatedly they have promised to pay the overdraft fees but have not. We have given up hoping that they will respond to our complaint by repaying us the $93.00 in overdraft fees that have accrued.Desired Settlement: We simply request that Sallie Mae transfer the $93.00 of overdraft fees to our old bank. Since we have already payed that to the bank in order to stop the cycle of overdraft fees, we will then write a check from that account reimbursing ourselves. *We mailed the check for $93.00 to the bank at the beginning of this week, so it does not show yet in the transaction history. The current overdraft amount listed is $124.00, but the bank agreed to reverse the last charge so $93.00 is the total owed.

Business

Response:

Thank you for

your message. In the interest of protecting the privacy of our customers,

the Office of the Customer Advocate responded directly to the customer via US

Postal Service on May 15 2015. Please allow sufficient time for postal

delivery.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted] and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.

Review: I obtained a student loan from Sallie Mae for the 2014-2015 school year at 2.25% with monthly interest payments made automatically my rate is reduced to 2.00%. For my second and final year of my MBA, I applied again with Sallie Mae. The interest rate I was offered was 6.00%. When I called to inquire why, no one could tell me. The credit department agreed that my credit history and score have not changed materially nor enough to make a difference. I made multiple phone calls to Sallie Mae to ascertain why the rate was so drastically different if my score is still excellent at 700+ and my credit history hasn't changed. I was told that they cannot tell me what drives the rate difference as that is "proprietary information." I've been a commercial lender and that is ridiculous and totally unacceptable!Desired Settlement: A satisfactory explanation as to why the interest rate jumped by 4% from one loan to the next. If it is due to loan amount, then what is the cut off loan amount to have an interest rate of less than 6%. A customer has the right to know why there is such a substantial increase in interest rate. If there is no reason, then I want the 2.25% interest rate. It is misleading to not inform customers that the loan amount will drastically change the interest rate.

Business

Response:

Thank you for

your message. In the interest of protecting the privacy of our customers,

the Office of the Customer Advocate responded directly to the customer via US

Postal Service on September 1, 2015. Please allow sufficient time for postal

delivery.