What Are We Waiting On Here, NJHESAA?

I’m not going to waste my time retyping something that I posted on this blog a few months back, so allow me to copy and paste something I wrote a few months ago. The topic of this post is how I sent a check to those nonchalant student loan payment processors at the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA) LAST MONDAY (TEN DAYS AGO) and it has YET to be applied to my balance as per my online account statement.

From back in February 2010:

Well, another issue that I’ve been aggravated about with NJHESAA is their inability to process my paper check payment in a timely fashion. For example, after I send a student loan payment to this private lender it generally takes them 10 – 15 days to process the check. WHY!?!?!

Why does it take NJHESAA so long to process a payment!?

Well, if you know anything about finance and how loans work, then you know why it takes NJHESAA so long to process payments. It’s very simple – the longer you hold a payment and not process it, the more the interest due on the payment grows. Here’s my real world example:

On Thursday, February 11th I sent my latest payment to NJHESAA. As of that date, I owed about $62 in accrued interest. Now, I understand that it takes some time for my payment to work its way through the postal system, through the NJHESAA’s mailing system, and eventually to be deposited in the bank. In 2010, that process should take between 3 and 5 days.

However, since my check has not been deposited yet and here we are – 9 days after the payment was sent – another $85 in interest has been accrued. So the total interest owed on the NJHESAA loan today has gone from $62 on the day that I sent the payment to $147 today. How disgusting is that?

And I don’t believe for one minute that my payment isn’t sitting on someone’s desk at the NJHESAA waiting to be deposited early next week. After all, since NJHESAA is closed on the weekends they get to accrue a few more days of interest by not depositing my check! Awesome! And why do I not believe that the payment isn’t sitting there? Because I have a job and I know that when someone sends me something, I get it in a matter of 2 or 3 days. There isn’t any big secret to the United States Postal Service – you send an item and they deliver it. In the rarest of cases your item might be lost, but the chances of that happening are slim to none.

What bothers me as of when I’m writing this entry (which is the night before it is scheduled to be posted on the blog) is that my check has been both cashed by NJHESAA (as of last Friday) and cleared by my bank (as of this past Monday). Meanwhile, my online account was not updated last Friday, over the weekend, this past Monday, or on Tuesday. What the hell is NJHESAA waiting for?! They have my check deposited in their greedy coffers already – post the damn payment!

I think we know which direction this is headed in… I’m going to wake up today (remember, I’m writing this the night before), the payment won’t be posted to my account, I’ll wind up calling NJHESAA, they’ll treat me like I don’t know anything about student loans or how to repay a loan (HA!), I’ll get frustrated with their insolence, they’ll get frustrated with my insolence, they’ll tell me the payment is lost, I’ll tell them they cashed it and I demand it be posted, they’ll tell me that they need proof of it being cashed, I’ll tell them that THEY CASHED IT and that they have the proof, and we’ll stalemate.

What a wonderful morning to look forward to… I need to get away from NJHESAA and FAST. They are, by far, the worst consumer debt organization that I’ve ever dealt with, EVER! I’ve dealt with every major credit card company, all of the major phone companies, and the major cable companies and always been able to come to some resolution on the phone. The NJHESAA? Ha ha ha!!!

Well, let’s hope that my anger is unfounded and that my already-processed payment is posted to my account when I wake up in the morning.