Complain about a product or service

Great Lakes Higher Education Corp.

Elizabeth of Random Lake,, WI August 19, 2009

It has been 2 months since I applied for a deference of my loan since I am unemployed. For some reason the process never went through. On each occasion of at least 3 phone calls from Great Lakes I was told the problem was "taken care of." Now I am told this will affect my (over 800) credit score! I so frustrated with this process that never got taken care of. On top of that this morning I spoke to a person named Craig who rudely told me that I should have been more proactive, that I was rude to him! Sorry Craig, you took my frustration personally, but frankly, he was of NO ASSISTANCE!

I then called back and spoke to Elizabeth, who took care of me nicely. My complaint is that even tho' - as Craig put it - "This is a government organization and things take time" I do not accept the fact that Great Lakes did not carry through the process effectively and now my credit is in jeapordy. And Craig, in my opinion, needs to find other area of employment because he acted more like a collections representative, than a solutions counselor. When I called back after Craig put me on hold, I waited for awhile then redialed. I got Elizabeth who took care of me very nicely. Thank you, now I sincerely hope this will go on to the next person and my request will be properly processed. Please Note: Previous phone calls (June, July) with representatives were fine, people were polite and helpful. It was the follow-up that didn't proceed.

Kelly of Glenwood, NY March 8, 2009

I reconsolidated my loan from Sallie Mae to Great Lakes in April of 2006. After 36 monthly on time payments, which were made by direct debit from my checking account immediately, I was told I was not eligible for the 1.25% reduction in rate until June 2009. They are already charging an outrageous 7.0% on my loan which origianlly began at 137K+. According to the IRS, only 2500 is the maximum allowed to deduct for interest.

In 2008, I paid over 8300.00 in interest. I'm barely making my bills and it's frustrating to know that although the website show the loan begin in April of 2006, they will only take payments posted from June 2006. I will be about 65 years old by the time my loan is paid off. How said is that? The government needs to adjust this problem and allow us lower middle class Americans BE ABLE to put money back into the ecomonmy with that excess we pay in loan interst.

Majority of my student loans are applied to the interst and not the principle. I have been paying for 10 years on this loan and it's still in the 6-digits. I may need to forclose on my house because I can't afford both. And my mortgage is less than my student loan payment.

Teri of Chicago, IL December 22, 2008

They are ignoring my letters requesting assistance in trying to lower my payment. They do not deal with individuals, unless it's over the phone, and they are rude and unhelpful. They get all these government protections, yet offer borrowers no relief or assistance. Their phone calls and letters are filled with threats and misinformation. I have informed them that I do not do business over the phone anymore due to lack of accountability on their part for what they say. I want everything in writing and they are not only refusing to give me that (they INSIST that I call them) but they ignore requests for my original loan information or disbursement detail. They seem to be difficult on purpose.

I cannot pay my student loan bills (over 1,900.00 per month, more than I make!) and they are refusing to work something out with me, in writing.

Joann of Rochester, NY October 6, 2008

In an attempt to pay off a parent plus loan, I have dealt with numerous phone reps all of whom are rude and appear to be reading off a script when providing what they think are answers. When asked why a 3% reduction would be lost if we paid this loan off prior to making 24 payments - we never did get an answer, they just kept giving us the run around. When asked how long it would take a bank check to clear, we were told 7-10 days. When pressed as to why a bank check would take that long we were told that ANY mailed check takes that long?????

Seems a bit odd since previous personal checks mailed never took that long and when we changed to paying on line, again it never took that long. We were advised that it would be quicker if we paid by phone - quicker indeed, for them!!! We also had NUMEROUS problems when trying to pay off our sons loans - we never received any notice of the accrued interest even though he requested to pay the interest all along. To this we were told that WE should have contacted Great Lakes to make sure we received what we were looking for - since we NEVER received anything to begin with (since he was in school, he would not be billed)how were we supposed to contact them. When we were told that they were acting on behalf of a lender we asked to have that lenders phone number we were told to look it up ourselves1!!!

How are we supposed to do that - because when you Google Student Loan Express there are numerous lenders along with several articles about investigations in some of these lenders which didn't make us feel any better. It was much easier to apply for these loans then to pay them off but then of course it would be since they're collecting the interest. We also asked as to how the interest rate was arrived at - and were told that it was the interest rate at the time that we applied. Interesting that the loans were applied for at different times and they appear to have taken the highest one to bill at. We and our son were not given a choice of what lender we would be given, and why are we being penalized for paying off these loans early - perhaps because they want the interest????? Also,we were told that on our sons loans that statements of accrued interest were sent out every three months - NOT- yet when I finally spoke with a supervisor we were told these statements were sent our YEARLY!!!!

I would NEVER recommend Student Loan Express/Great Lakes to anyone for student loans. After being on the phone for over 15 minutes each time and NEVER getting a straight answer on ANYTHING and then on top of that being told that the 3% that was deducted would be added back on because we were paying these loans off early!!! Why should we be penalized for this, you would think that they would be glad that we were paying this off. Not that we would EVER do this, but would they have been happier if these loans had been defaulted on???? What a way to do business -----NEVER again! I have also contacted the Attorney Generals of our home state of New York, Ohio the state where he attend school and Wisconsin the state where Great Lakes is located. We truly don't believe that anything will come from this, but it does give us some peace of mind to that at least we could get this off our chest.

Report Your Experience
If you've had a bad experience -- or a good one -- with a consumer product or service, we'd like to hear about it. All complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are considered for publication on our site. Knowledge is power! Help spread the word. File your consumer report now.

Share		Follow us on Twitter.

Back to the top |