Paying off your student loans with Great Lakes? Watch out Student Loans |
- Paying off your student loans with Great Lakes? Watch out
- Home Stretch - Paying off $215K in Student Loan Debt
- Is NSLDS legit or scam?
- (question) If all my income is in Japan, and my income in the usa is zero, would an Income Based Repayment plan bring my federal student loan payments to zero?
- Has anyone refinanced defaulted private loans?
- I feel stuck with my Student Loans
- I just paid off my student loans. And i save $ 18k
- Looking to refi student loans ($126k balance) any advice welcome
- My student loan dashboard (Earnest) is telling me that it received this month's payment, and the loan went down by the expected amount, but no money was taken out of my checking account.
- How about using a 401k loan to pay down student loans?
- Qualifying for IBR, PAYE
| Paying off your student loans with Great Lakes? Watch out Posted: 06 Nov 2018 12:28 PM PST I just paid off my student loans serviced by Great Lakes and I encountered many issues with them along the way. Here is a description of my payoff process so you know what to watch out for if they are your servicer as well: Last week I called them over the phone to schedule the payment to pay off my remaining balance of approximately $30,000. I had 2 autopay payments coming up the next day and I figured, why cancel those - just call and have them tell me exactly what I needed to pay on top of those to kill the remaining balance. Well, long story short, the phone rep gave me the wrong payoff amount. Unfortunately I didn't figure it out until later that day, at which point the payment had already been scheduled and it was outside of business hours so I couldn't call them back. When I called them back the next morning to let them know I had been overcharged due to their own error, the phone rep tried to argue with me for a solid 5 minutes until she realized that she was wrong. She then told me I was owed a refund of $80. I had a feeling she was just doing napkin math, so I asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor told me they would take some time to look into it properly and I would get a call back in 3 business days. The supervisor later called me back and let me know that I was actually owed a refund of $100, and that I would receive it in 30-45 (!!!) business days. I asked for a receipt or something in writing, and was told they couldn't give me a receipt because the refund had to be processed first 🤨 The following day, the 2 autopay payments and my excess payment were debited from my checking account. I logged into Great Lakes to double check that all the payments had been applied properly. Lo and behold, the excess payment had been applied to Loan #1 only, so Loan #1 was paid off, but Loan #2 still had a balance. The excess payment was more than the balance of Loan #1, obviously, since I had meant for it to cover Loan #1 and Loan #2. So the website said I had an overpayment of several thousand dollars on Loan #1. I had to call Great Lakes and ask them to apply the overpayment to Loan #2 🤦♀️ I had to argue with the phone rep to do it too - she kept insisting that I had a balance on Loan #2 because "the payment is still pending from your bank." How could the payment still be pending if it was applied to Loan #1? It's not pending, you just f****d it up. The next time I logged into Great Lakes, it said the overpayment was applied to Loan #2 as of 11/3. Not 11/2 which was the original date of my excess payment. So they got 1 more day of interest out of me than they should have. Needless to say I'm not holding my breath waiting for my $100 to be refunded to me in 30-45 days. My favorite part of all of this was that phone rep #2 had the gall to tell me, "I know that even $80 is important" when I asked her about getting a refund. Implying that I was being dramatic for following up about being overcharged. We all know how they would treat a borrower who missed an $80 monthly payment 😒 Tl;dr: Great Lakes is trash. [link] [comments]  |
| Home Stretch - Paying off $215K in Student Loan Debt Posted: 06 Nov 2018 04:32 AM PST This is a throw away account. This is my first post like this so please be gentle :-). I'm a bit nervous about sharing. Long time lurker and first time poster. I'm in the home stretch of paying off my student loans and so I thought I would finally share my experience of what can only be described as a journey of patience, faith, and discipline. Some basic facts about me: I'm 35. I graduated from law school in 2008. Insert financial crisis. I did not get my first full time job until 2011. Before that I did a lot of temp work. I did quasi legal work until 2015 when I got my first job as a practicing attorney. Most of my debt has been paid off between 2015 and now. I'm single. No kids. I rent in a high cost of living area. In addition to the student loan debt (~$215K) I also had about ~65k in credit card debt because I was in a relationship and made poor choices. Most of that debt belonged to my significant other but was in my name. And when I say most, I really mean 95% of it. I put on my big girl panties and recognized that I was foolish and that he was pretty useless so I decided that this was my burden to carry alone. How I did it and problems I faced: I foolishly did forbearance for about 2 years after graduating which added another ~30K to my original debt amount. My parents (simply the best) helped cover my mainly interest only payments and/or extended graduated payments on my student loans (~$1100 ) for 4 years while I killed the 65K in credit card debt. This amounts to about a $53K windfall. Pretty sure some of this didn't make any sense but that's what I did. I utilized the debt snowball at first for my smaller credit card debts and then graduated to the avalanche method. I've lived on my own while paying off this debt. YNAB, FICO Forums, Reddit were all instrumental in keeping me focused. When I went from my first full time job to my second I basically pretended like I didn't get a raise. Every bit of extra income went to paying off the debt. I didn't keep track but when it was time to focus on the student loans in 2015 I think I had a little under ~$200K left. I consolidated and refinanced about 85K of the debt in 2015 at a low variable rate. I then focused all of my energy on knocking that out first. The numbers: My gross income in 2011 was about 85K My current gross income is about ~$179K About 34K of my student load debt was from undergrad. ~$215K is where I started and I'm at $48,774 today. I don't have any credit card debt today and I lease my car and that lease ends in June of 2019. My goal is to pay of my student loans by spring of 2019. I plan to use a combination of bonus money and savings in addition to my aggressive monthly payment. I'm going to go for broke when I write that last check but it will be worth it to be pretty much be debt free (minus my next car lease). ​ UPDATE: Totaled up the contributions from my parents. Some folks want it spelled out and I'm fine with that. I want to be transparent. Not trying to make anyone think that I'm hiding the ball. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Nov 2018 07:43 PM PST Hey guys, I just had a question about a "federally backed consolidation program" from NSLDS. I received a letter a few days ago in regards to that with "Final Notice" in bold. Which is funny because this is the only letter that I've received from these guys. And everything seems a bit too good to be true, which understandably makes me skeptical. Stating that it'll decrease my monthly payments, interest rate, and possibility for loan forgiveness. So being skeptical, I tried to search for any information and or use cases but I can find little to nothing, besides the website nslds.ed.gov. And I'm beginning to question that if this is actually legitimate why would I be chosen, when my none of my colleagues or friend are? In fine print it says that they offer private, fee based application assistance... If someone can shine some light on this that'd be great. At the moment, it's a no go. But curiosity is killing me. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Nov 2018 01:51 PM PST I'm not sure how income based repayment works. if all of your money comes from a foreign country (as i live in japan) would my monthly payment go to zero? Obviously interest would continue to accrue. is this how it works? also, how do i file for income based repayment? with my irs tax return documentation? proving my income in the usa is zero? thanks [link] [comments]  |
| Has anyone refinanced defaulted private loans? Posted: 06 Nov 2018 11:50 AM PST Nerd wallet has lots to say about federal but not private. I assume it's simi difficult to do but curious about the reality of it. [link] [comments]  |
| I feel stuck with my Student Loans Posted: 06 Nov 2018 07:51 AM PST Hello Reddit any help is good enough, throwaway account. So I like many have student loan debt. I dropped out of college and never made a single payment on my loans. I have defaulted and been in default for a while now. A couple years ago I did the rehabilitation however this was during the time of me getting married and moving and I never capitalized on it. This August I stated getting my wage garnished and am now not eligible for consolidation. This past week I got a letter of offset from the Department of Education. I called them and they lead me to a debut collector and they tell me my only option is basically to pay it in full now or set up payments that will not stop the garnishment anyway. I don't know what to do. Do I get a lawyer involved? I just want to start making payments and getting this monkey off my back. So please help if you have any ideas or suggestions. [link] [comments]  |
| I just paid off my student loans. And i save $ 18k Posted: 06 Nov 2018 12:22 AM PST I just paid off my student loans.. I saved up $18.000 this year and finally paid my student and car loans off. So im really happy. It feels fantastic. because even though I've been making money my net worth has still been negative (until now) I can start a new life! [link] [comments]  |
| Looking to refi student loans ($126k balance) any advice welcome Posted: 06 Nov 2018 07:37 AM PST So I'm currently looking to refi the loans for a lower rate as I'm currently paying 6.8%. I want to pay them off in 2 years. (Should be able to with monthly payments in the mid $5k range). Any advice or guidance on what the best way to refi is/ anything to look out for or avoid would be very helpful. Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Nov 2018 07:30 AM PST I know Earnest saw some changes recently (like within the past two weeks, so I assume this is the reason), but this seems like a major screw-up on their part. The loan got lowered by the amount I WOULD have paid, and it says "Last payment of $x received on November 3rd, 2018", but I checked and double-checked my bank account and no money was taken out. It's bizarre. Anyone else having problems with Earnest since the recent changes? [link] [comments]  |
| How about using a 401k loan to pay down student loans? Posted: 06 Nov 2018 03:20 AM PST I'm wondering if this could be beneficial. If my employer gives a generous match on my 401k, would it be beneficial to borrow against it in order to make a large payment against the principal then pay back my 401k loan then repeat? My thought process is this, would the interest savings offset the losses in gains? I know there's no way to truly know this but if my entire portfolio is slanted towards high risk. If I borrow no more than 25% I am essentially converting that sum to low risk which might be healthy anyway. Here's some numbers. 90K in Loans with roughly 40K at 6.8% the rest are at 3.2-4.7% mostly 3.2% My employer matches 7% to my 6% contribution to the 401K so 50% of my 401K came from their pockets. I thought about taking a 10K loan at 6% interest to myself (back into the 401K) and paying it back over 2 years and repeating until all of the 6.8% loans are paid off. Would I save money paid in interest to fed loan over the next 25 years by doing this? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Nov 2018 06:41 AM PST On the federal loan website for the payment estimator, it says to qualify for IBR and PAYE, there must be a financial or partial hardship and the student must be a new borrower. What is considered a hardship? I have two children with ASD who need a lot of medical care, so this has regulated me to working part-time. My husband and I are going to file separately to get the payments down, but who qualifies as a new borrower? [link] [comments]  |
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