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Nelnet review: student loan 19

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2:30 pm EDT
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I took two loans in [protected] with Sally Mae while I was in Illinois.
Each of the two loans was for $1000.00.
Total amount borrowed: $2000.00

Despite paying $50.00 a month on these two loans, which were combined into one account, to a series of different companies who have "acquired" the loans from the original lender, since 1994, somehow they are STILL not paid off.

The most recent company that has "purchased" my loan is Nelnet, who "acquired" the loans/debt in August of 2005.

As of my most recent statement for 5/4/2009 the loans are still owing in the amounts of $1113.06 and $842.44

Now, I admit I am not a math major yet common sense tells me that if I CAN PROVE i have paid $50.00 a month since 1/2004, that by 1/2009 I have PAID more than $3000.00 and thus these two $1000.00 loans should be PAID OFF by now

(And by saying that I can prove that I have paid each month since ce 1/2004, @ $50.00 per month, I mean that I can reach into the desk drawer that is less than 4 feet from my keyboard right now, and pull out 5 plus years worth of bank statments. If I pull my "Student Loan" file from my closet filing cabinet, I have proof of payments and or tax refund seizures dating back to 1994 and can prove that I have paid these two loans off at least three times in the last 16 years since incurring them...)

When I contacted Nelnet just now today, I still somehow magically mysteriously owe them over $1955.00.

Last month I called to explain I was out of work, disabled and facing surgery and requested that the monthly payment be reduced...their representative agreed to reduce it to $14.00 total...And I received a letter from Nelnet on their own letterhead telling me that my request had been approved.

Yet not even 10 days after their own letter telling me the payment was being reduced they still took the original payment amount of $50.00. When I called to complain, they told me "Oh your request for reduced payment was reversed, didn't we call you on 5/20/09?"

Uhm no...they didn't, and I have had the SAME telephone number for over 6 years...they know it, their representatives confirm it each and every time I call...

I am seriously contemplating legal action against Nelnet...I can PROVE with banking statements dating back to 1/2004 that I have paid on these two loans monthly, and have paid more than $3000.00 yet the balances on their monthly statements never seem to go down...ever...

If there was a Class Action Lawsuit on behalf of every person who had ever taken out a student loan then ended up dealing with Nelnet, I would happily join the list of Plaintiffs...

Anyone thinking of such an action please contact me at
[protected]@hotmail.com

Thank you!
Chatrient

Update by Chatrient
Nov 03, 2009 11:16 pm EST

Inbound collector

who says i defaulted?
I didn't default
they seized a tax refund iLLEGALLY yet I had no recourse !
I could not MAKE them give that money back to me...

As for me scamming the system...
oh please...
I have never scammed NELNET!

I personally feel that i am the one who has been scammed by them...

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The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.

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19 comments
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NelnetIdiots
Boise, US
Mar 14, 2013 3:19 pm EDT

Nelnet is a company that is not only hearless, they are liars and really stupid. I qualified for the recent law that allows you to pay a percentage of your income. Nelnet approved me the first year and then conveniently forgot to tell me I had to renew each year. Although I timely renewed, they started trying to take money from my checking account claiming I had late payments which was false. Then they refused to back off and considered my loan to be in default. My loan is $125, 000 (yes, I know I spent alot of time in school.) I have ignored the idiots because I am judgment proof. Now they mailed a wage garnishment to me. I am self employed. The law requires them to file a lawsuit, win a judgment and get a form from the court before they can even get a wage garnishment and it has to be served by a sheriff or process server. What a bunch of stupid idiots. They are in Utah and a bunch of miserable, heartless idiots.

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jennyjet74
Palmerton, US
Apr 04, 2012 9:34 am EDT

These people are heartless! NelNet has harassed me continuaously for the last 6 months! I took a leave of absense from my schooling because I was carrying my first child and she was diagnosed with a fatal chromosomal condition called Trisomy 18. I took a leave so that I could prepare for her birth and death at the same time. The school seemed to be fine with me taking this leave and understood that I was not sure that in the end I would be able to return mentally at all. I lost my daughter in my arms at 2 1/2 months old and since her diagnoses during pregnancy my mind has gone stir crazy. NelNet all of a sudden wants to "help" me as they claim yet they are all rude and rotten and non-understanding that I am uncapable of even working now to even make a payment of 50 cents to them. I told them my issues and about my loss and yet they dont give a damn. The local legion set up a website for my baby girl in her memory to raise awareness for Trisomy 18 because of the discrimination our babies face by medical professionals and this Laura.Ross has had the nerve to call meat least 20+ times a day and then went as far as harassing me through my "DEAD DAUGHTERS WEBSITE". then she sent texts and then called my daughters fathers line, my brother, my mother, and even went through facebook and contacted a person that I dont even really speak to anymore. First of all she is interuppting the privacy act through giving out my personal information to people that I do NOT associate with and then to harass through my dead daughters website? Going way too far in my opinion and quite honestly it is stalking and harassment in my opinion and honestly quite disturbing that someone would use a dead childs memorial website to harass someone; especially their mother. I am far from being capable of returning to school and I am far from being capable of working right now and I cannot take the stress from these people any more than I already have! I have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder as well as post traumatic stress disorder and these people are making it worse for me! Not to mention that on top of the grief I am experiencing over my daughter I just had a miscarriage two weeks ago and that has added more stress and grief to me. These people do not stop and are sick and twisted individuals! And this is all over $1600.00 mind you! There has to be a law that prohibits them from this type of harassment and recourse has got to be available? The picture is of my beautiful baby girl that I lost with Trisomy 18; I just cannot fathom how someone can be so cruel and heartless to disturb my daughters memory for one and to interrupt her website and harass a grieving mother for that matter!

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rumladada
Brooklyn, US
Oct 12, 2011 6:07 am EDT

PEOPLE WE NEED TO SUE THESE A-HOLES. I am going through the same thing as Bttercup1124 and feel helpless. What can we do? My payments have been automatic $204 per month last 5 years. My last payment, only $1.10 went to principal. WTH is that? Class action, how do we do it?

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Bttrcup1124
Clarence, US
Aug 29, 2011 2:46 am EDT

Nelnet is such a scam. I took out around $50K for my four years of college. I have two accounts through Nelnet. One is Federal, which the total amount was $18K. My other one is a private loan, totaling around $32K. I have been paying around $130/month on the Federal at a 2% fixed rate since 2005 and was paying $205/month on my private at a 3.25% rate since 2005. I have paid every single month faithfully. In 2007, they raised my private payment to $335/month because they claimed I wouldn't pay my loan off in the 20-year term if I kept paying what I was. Being a naive young woman in my early 20's, I didn't think to look much into it. Paying almost $500/month is crippling, but I've managed, barely. Within the past year, I really looked into my loan situation because the math wasn't adding up to me. I was stuck paying around $463/month for 20 years to pay off $50K? It didn't make any sense. I looked up my payment history and noticed that over the course of the 6 years I've been paying, 34 of my private loan payments have all been applied to interest and none to principal. When I called about this, they kept giving me round about answers. I also learned that they were cross-applying my payments to my two separate accounts. In other words, my private loan payment is being split between my Federal and Private accounts, and my Federal payment is being applied to my Private account. They said there was nothing they could do about this. I tried arguing that they are two separate accounts, with two separate payment dates, two different interest rates, etc., but they didn't seem to care. I asked them to start over and refigure all the payments I've made and apply them properly, rather than having 34 payments being applied to just interest. They said they would, but it might take weeks. That was 10 months ago and I still haven't heard from them. Every time I've called, I can't get a live person. After adding up my payments on my payment history, I realized that in 6 years, I've paid $18K in interest and only $8K has gone to my principal. These are with 2% and 3% interest rates! Something is horribly wrong and I have no way of getting a hold of them now to try and fix this. They are very uncooperative, have inexperienced people working there, and are very hard to deal with. I am being scammed big time and it's very frustrating!

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RAE88
Denver, US
Jun 22, 2011 3:53 pm EDT

Nelnet is a total scam, BEWARE! If they start harassing you with phone calls and threatening collection letters, proceed paying them with caution. They claimed to have purchased my loans, but couldn't tell me from who. They claimed they had 60, 000 worth of my loans, but never sent me a single statement. They claimed to be sending statements to an email address that was incorrect. When I called them up to contest, they must have asked me "how much can your afford to pay today" about 15 times. I think their phone reps must get a cookie for every dollar they collect over the phone. It was AWFUL! After confirming with my lender that my loans were never sold to nelnet, and reconfirming on the nslds that my list of loans was accurate as shown by my lender, all I can conclude is that this company is engaging in some seriously fraudulent practices. I am in the process of contesting their claims to preserve my credit.

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Davo_64
Ofallon, US
Jun 04, 2011 9:26 pm EDT

I have issues with Nelnet's payment postings. On a most recent statement after 9 months of $100 each payments, my balance on one disbursement has not changed and the other decreased by only about $80. My total payoff if to pay off within 10 days is more than what I originally borrowed. That is crooked right their. But my statements show I've paid like about $745 in principal. Is it just their accounting system interface to the website or what? Check out the attached last statement and in Group C. I Borrowed $3, 421.72 and it shows Principal paid of $334.28, so how can my payoff amount be $3, 531.25? $110 more than I borrowed--WTF? I've sent them a message asking for a detailed account statement and why the differences. Once I get a good explanation and correct pay off balance, I'm taking money from a mutual fund cash out and paying these jokers off. I'll get my loans from my USAA bank from now one. F these guys.

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Danni87
3646 Pinoak, US
Apr 08, 2011 9:39 pm EDT

I just talked with Nelnet today about an outstanding student loan. They are completely unwilling to work with me in any way. I owe about $21, oo0 and am currently in and out of the hospital with chrons disease. I can not afford to pay the $200 a month they demanded and when I explained my situation to them they said they did not care and that if I tried to make a lesser payment they would take me to court and garnish my wages. I am not a law student, and I never studied finances at school, so I am asking for help. Can someone please tell me if there is any way to pay a lesser amount, and if nelnet is as bad as I have read about, what do I do. Any help would be very appreciated. Thank you

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Educated Consumer 123
Lakeville, US
Mar 10, 2011 8:34 pm EST

My payments on my loans just began in December, so luckily I noticed some irregularities fairly quickly into the term of my repayment. Basically, as stated by several above, Nelnet makes changes to your account without your authorization. Changes which will cost you thousands if you don't pay attention. Upon receiving my first bill, I decided that I would pay of one of my three loans in its entirety just to avoid hundreds in interest over time. Because this dealt with a large amount of my money, I chose to call Nelnet to make the payment and get a personal confirmation. The process seemingly went smooth but a month later I found a big mistake. The payment I made towards one loan was actually distributed throughout all three. The issue was sorted out but I was left a little bit skeptical. Then, after making payments of over $50 more than I owed for the past two months, I took a look at my payment details and was again very surprised by a couple of things. First, like many others I noticed that my principle was hardly being affected at all. For last month’s bill, only $40 out of the $90 I paid (on a $50 bill) was going to interest I hadn’t even accrued. That quite obviously does not reflect the 6% interest rate stated in my policy. Second, and even more frustrating, I noticed that my payment plan was changed without authorization. For one of the two remaining loans, I was only being billed for half of the scheduled monthly payment ($25 instead of $50). On top of that, the second loan was not even being billed at all! So basically interest is accruing on this bill and monthly payments aren’t even being sought. So what does this mean? Quite obviously they are scamming me into interest payments by delaying principle payments when interest is still in effect. Only two months into the repayment period and I have already spent over a $100 on interest I haven't accrued. That on top of unauthorized changes made to my account. If this went unnoticed, which it easily could have done, I would be out hundreds if not thousands of dollars. So right now I have some calls to make, but for anyone who can help, I have some questions on what I should do. Right now I am contemplating just forking out money I've saved and paying off one of the loans completely, which is at about $1, 000, just to be done with the account. I’m a recent graduate so as you can imagine, this would be a huge burden, but it seems to be the only way I can avoid excess interest in the long run. The way I see it, if I make extra payments to get ahead of my principle, the money is just wasted on un-accrued interest. If I make the minimum payments to pay correct interest amounts, then they will just change my payment settings to screw me over. Any other suggestions for getting through this mess would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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tedgj
, US
Mar 03, 2011 9:50 pm EST

Crooks! Stay away From Neltnet! !WARNING! I was ahead in my payments when Neltnet decided to stop my automatic withdrawals - without notification. I had to re-register and re-enroll into an automatic withdrawal which (because Im ahead in my payments) will not let me make a payment until 8 months later in the year. This move on Nelnet's part increases the interest accrued on my debt owed and only compound for the life of the loan. Crooks! Stay away From Neltnet! !WARNING! Stay away From Neltnet! STAY AWAY!

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helpfulhints
nice try, US
Feb 01, 2011 4:30 pm EST

Nelnet is a scam and they are completely worthless. I suggest getting any and all loans consolidated through https://loanconsolidation.ed.gov. At some point you will get scammed and you'll find yourself reading these posts of other people who have some how been scammed as well.

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the nel-net
Watertown, US
Jul 29, 2010 8:56 am EDT
Verified customer This comment was posted by a verified customer. Learn more

Does anyone know how to get a human on the phone at Nelnet? Please post.

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the nel-net
Watertown, US
Jul 29, 2010 8:55 am EDT
Verified customer This comment was posted by a verified customer. Learn more

The student loans have been set up to fully amortize over 15 t0 20 year terms so additional payments, that you think are going to principal, are not. From what I understand they've made it very difficult to accelerate payments of these loans. In the end, if you don't jump through the beuracratic hoops, you will pay for the 15-20 years worth of interest regardless...

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jessikta
El Monte, US
Mar 06, 2010 2:00 pm EST

Same thing happend to me paid almost 5, 000 and thought i had about four more payments, suddnely my next bill says i now owe over 5, 0000. Are you kidding me, and when i called no record of payments, and could barely understand the person who answered the phone thick accent. I will not pay the rest which was about another 1, 000. I paid so much to them and basically i got very ripped off too! pissed off and can't afford a lawyer. maybe we can start a class action law suite. oreo10sears003@yahoo.com

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madatnelnlet
Philadelphia, US
Nov 03, 2009 10:40 pm EST

I intend to seek legal action. I too had a loan with Nelnet which they sent to collection because I wasn't making payments for a full year. Never mind that they never sent me a payment slip, letter, etc or made any attempt to contact me. After the collection letter I made payment arrangement and paid off the loan in 32 months in 2006. I requested a letter stating my loan was paid in full, but guess what. THEY NEVER SENT IT. Now almost four years later they contact my parents to say that they want their money. ? I call and they tell me they have no record of any payments. The next time I call they say "don't do anything; we are doing an investigation." The next time I call they have found one payment. They request I procure copies of all cancelled checks. Any idea how many banks merged/went under in the past 2 years and they want me to go back to 2003... So I have take time off work and hope bank A which is now bank B has my cancelled checks from 6 years ago... Luckily after going to several banks, I was able to get copies of all the checks for which I have to pay and miss work. I send all of the copies via email and ask for a letter stating that the loan is paid in full. I get home and find a letter stating that because I have not made any attempts to contact them and resolve this situation they have reported me to the credit bureau as being in default. Now 2+ weeks, no letter, no phone call, no email! You bet I'm getting a lawyer. They have harassed me for over 6 weeks and screwed up my credit because they can't find the payments. Due to their incompetency they have made the last 6 weeks of my life a complete nightmare. Bottom line, I paid the 8k in full and now after nearly 4 years they are attempting to extort the full amount + interest ... unbelievable!

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angrycitizen
Ramsey, US
Sep 16, 2009 2:17 pm EDT

Inbound Collector, I could follow you around all day and have fun with you, but you've only made 10 posts.

Do you really believe the crap you're saying on here? No one walks into a bank after telling their buddies "Hey, watch this - I'm going to borrow $10, 000 and never pay it back!" Scamming the system? The US economy crisis? These are all because of consumers who fell on life-altering hard times and could no longer afford what they'd originally agreed to?

You're delusional.

The crisis was caused by banks and lending institutions scamming consumers into adjustable rate mortgages, knowing in 5 years that they wouldn't have a chance of making their payments unless they won the lottery. I saw the ads... YOU could own a $750, 000 home for only $800 a month! No one warned anyone. The rich just got richer, and when the economy collapsed, they all got bonuses and golden parachutes with our tax dollars. Until BANKS and LENDING INSTITUTIONS started going bankrupt and the whole economy shifted, I bet many of those in collections were making their payments just fine.

You kick people while they're down, you prey on the weak, and it's sickening.

Get a real job, get a dog, get therapy... whatever it takes. Maybe you read the paper upside down. But you have no idea what's going on with these people. You just want your 20 pieces of silver, and you don't care what you have to say or who you have to hurt to get it.

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Von Bulow
, US
May 18, 2017 4:01 pm EDT

Hey pal, did you see The Big Short? I highly recommend it. You might gain some new insights.
And insulting people with real problems is not the American way.
I am making it my mission to convert Nelnet into the next Enron. To wit: they make spurious claims such as "requesting a forbearance;" sending erroneous billing statements; and claiming that deadlines were missed.
Do you work for these Coporate stooges? Sounds like it.
BVS disabled Combat Arms Veteran

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sadPLUSmom
Katy, US
Aug 11, 2009 11:30 pm EDT

Inbound Collector you are showing your own ignorance by name calling and insulting. My son got a degree in Business Administration and Finance and is going round and round with NelNet who will not answer any questions straight. When asked to send us an amortization schedule, they hedge and ask if you would like to change your pay back options or sign up for automatic withdrawls...which they ought to know we already have if they are truly trying to answer an individual's questions. This is another large company acquiring loans with those of us who are not dishonest enough to cheat the system or poor enough to qualify for help. We have no other options to put our children through college but Parent PLUS loans and the like. Mine were bought out by NelNet after consolidation and now even though I pay MORE than the minimum payment, my principal amount continues to go UP each month. How can that be? This person has a legitimage complaint, and I too would like to see this type of thing stopped.

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Inbound Collector
Lincoln, US
Jul 22, 2009 11:33 pm EDT

I happen to work with a company that uses Windham Professionals and guess what? Default fees can be up to 25% of your original loan balance and that will not show up on NSLDS. Because of people like you scamming the system and borrowing money that you will never pay back, this country's debt problem is worse and the economy gets worse, and because of your idiotic, stupid mistake the country is now in dire trouble.

They will garnish wages. If it is too hard to pay the bills now, imagine what it would be like with 15% off your wages.

Maybe you should get a refund on the money the original company loaned you because you are obviously TOO STUPID to have earned any sort of degree.

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04122008
Birmingham, US
Jun 01, 2009 11:14 pm EDT

You would actually need to aim your class action lawsuit toward the federal government. I used to work for a similar company in the same industry, and the way interest accumulates and payments are applied is mandated by the Department of Education. It is included in the terms of your original promissory note. Promissory notes are not lender specific, and rather are a standard for all federal student loans. My recommendation to you is to educate yourself on how the interest accrues and payments are applied, which will likely be a more productive way to spend your time.