Complaint Rating:

Absolutely horrible experience.

I can't say enough about how awful working with Wachovia is! I am a very meticulous person; I keep records of my school loans and stay informed about them. While I'm quite able to admit when I've made a mistake, my problems with Wachovia are not because of any errors on my part.

I feel like people need to know what I'm going through at the moment so that they can make an informed decision about their education loans! Getting a loan with Wachovia is an easy start-up process, with fast approval and low interest. However, these people are at heart a loan company. They will, at the first given chance, try to take advantage of you. I am a college sophomore who has attended university continuously and all of my education loans have been through Wachovia. I transferred after my first semester, and have now been a student at my current university for three semesters.

My problems began when I transferred. I was told all my paperwork was in order and that Wachovia was aware of my transfer. They assured me that they knew I was only transferring, not leaving school. I thought all was well and went on my way happy as a clam. Now, though, I'm dealing with a loan that is delinquent, because they claim I didn't properly notify them of my transfer. They also tell me that I haven't been going to school full time, when in fact I've been overloading so that I may graduate in four years.

I have gotten no paper statements for this delinquent loan, no emails- just a slew of collection agency (CSS) calls in the past few weeks. The loan status is not visible on my online account, either. There is no way for me to pay it, even if I could access an online or physical payment method. Aside from that- I'm still in school. I've never left school. I've sent in two official enrollment verification forms, neither of which Wachovia nor ACS, who is acting on behalf of Wachovia, seemed to receive.

Meanwhile, the customer service agents are rude, curt and are not at all helpful. Also, most of them barely speak passable English. They give me canned responses that are obviously not personalized. It took my mom and I two back to back conference calls, today, with ACS/Wachovia to finally get anyone to tell me what I needed to do to forestall this default. I'm sorry to say it, but we also had to get extremely angry before any of the representatives would give us any good information. I have trouble trusting the advice they gave me at this point, because it will probably change next week when I call back to confirm whether they've gotten all my information.

This is unacceptable, stressful and ridiculous. I strongly urge anyone considering Wachovia to look elsewhere for education loans.