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Update: Where’s My $4,300 Student Loan Check – Day 16

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Yesterday, I wrote about how the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA) hasn’t cashed a very large check that was now sent off in the mail some 16 days ago. I also shared the text of an e-mail that I sent to NJHESAA the day before (that would be 14 days after the check was sent). As you might imagine, as of this writing my e-mail hasn’t been responded to at all.

And since I pretty much guessed that I wasn’t going to receive a response from the wonderful customer service folks at NJHESAA, I decided to place a call to these folks first thing yesterday morning. Side note – isn’t it amazing that whenever I call NJHESAA the recorded message is the same? It goes something like, “We’re experiencing high call volumes right now and will answer your call in 12 – 15 minutes.” Every single time I call them, I get the same message. I can call them at 8:30am and that’s the message that I hear. I can call them at 4:30pm and the same message blurts out again. Talk about bad customer service – NJHESAA uses its audio recording as a means of repelling callers and having people hang up the phone instead of waiting on hold! Good grief!

Anyway, after you wait on hold for a few minutes listening to all of these annoying blurbs promoting all of these NJHESAA services, another annoying blurb tells you that you can leave a message in the general mailbox and have it answered within 48 hours. That was the option that I choose yesterday morning as I wondered why the customer service geniuses at NJHESAA didn’t place that option earlier in the recorded message.

Well, folks, here we are more than 24 hours later and guess who hasn’t received a phone call back yet? That’s right!

Let’s see how bad NJHESAA can screw up this time. Frankly, I’m waiting to hear what type of bullshit they come out with when I think we all know what’s going on here. Does anyone at NJHESAA want to fess up and make this right?

Better question – do any other NJHESAA borrowers out there feel like getting involved in a class action lawsuit against these guys? They’re clearly not acting in good faith in this scenario.

Update: After I wrote the text above, I decided to call NJHESAA again. I was stuck in their automated system on hold for 29 minutes and 10 seconds before I hung up. This is absolutely unacceptable. I know for a fact that NJHESAA frequently visits this blog – why is no one doing anything about this disaster? Do you guys like getting lambasted time and time again? Unbelievable…

Let this be a lesson to all of you folks looking to get an NJCLASS loan from NJHESAA – run and run quick!

Further Update: I got myself so annoyed yesterday by the lack of response from NJHESAA, that I wrote the following e-mail to their Director of Communication. Please note that I forwarded my original e-mail and added this text to the new e-mail.

Good afternoon, XXXXXX.

I have not yet received a response from NJHESAA on the e-mail below or to a message I left on the voicemail system earlier today. Unlike most of the folks who probably contact you, I’m not trying to find a way out of paying my student loan. In fact, I’m trying to completely repay my student loan in the next few weeks! Yet, when my checks are in limbo for such a long period of time and I get zero response from NJHESAA, it obviously makes me wonder what is going on over there.

Getting a straight answer out of NJHESAA should be a much easier process than this has become. I want to know where my $4,300 check is and why it hasn’t been cashed. I don’t buy the notion that it’s lost in the mail. And I want to make an arrangement to hand deliver future checks to 4 Quakerbridge Plaza because – after this horrible, costly experience – I have no faith in the payment process any more.

I would have never imagined that trying to fully repay a student loan would be so difficult. In this economy, I might imagine that NJHESAA would welcome a larger borrower arranging to have his entire loan repaid well before the maturity date. I have to admit that I’m amazed at what is going on here. Can you provide any details?

Thank you,
Joe
http://www.JerseySmarts.com/

Hopefully, this makes something happen.

When in Doubt, Stick to the Plan… Always Stick to the Plan!

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Sticking to the student loan repayment plan has brought us back to a familiar place. I’m pleased to announce that effective a few days ago, my student loan debt fell from a total outstanding of about $84 thousand to $83 thousand. As I’ve said so many times before on this blog – another grand bites the dust.

Down to $83 thousand...

And I plan on making these types of announcements over and over again until this New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA) loan is retired. I’m going to keep on making these announcements because I intend to stick to my repayment plan. I wrote this back on January 26, 2010:

So, as I’ve said before on this blog – get used to reading these types of entries because I am committed to attacking one of my two outstanding student loans this year. If I can stick to the plan that I created in December, I’ll rid myself of the $39 thousand debt remaining on my NJHESAA loan in the next 18 to 24 months. And, believe it or not, time seems to be flying by these days so I could potentially be free from this loan before you even know it.

Time certainly is flying – here we are at June 7, 2010 already. Can you believe it?! Back on January 26, 2010, I owed $39 thousand to the NJHESAA. Today, I owe about $28 thousand. Reducing that student loan by about $11 thousand in about four and a half months is pretty damn good, I think. However, like one of my friends and commenters Justin and I wrote about in the comments section of a recent entry, that’s $11 thousand that is not contributing to the economy and another $28 thousand that I have no plan to work back into the economy any time soon.

And that doesn’t even begin to touch the $55 thousand that I still owe to the United States Department of Education (USDOE)… But that’s for another blog entry at another time. Today, join me in celebrating another thousand bucks off of my student loan debt!

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $83 thousand, which breaks down to $28 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $55 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Student Loan Update – Getting Close to Another Milestone

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No time for big celebrations of elongated entries today about defeating my student loan debt and so on. Today, my student loan debt has fallen from $93 thousand to $91 thousand. I’m particular proud that I started this year with about $97 thousand in student loan debt. In fact, check this out:

Student Loan Debt Today: $91 thousand

Student Loan Debt at 12/31/2009: $97 thousand

Student Loan Debt at 12/31/2008: $105 thousand

Student Loan Debt at 12/31/2007: $110 thousand

So far this year I’ve reduced my debt by $6 thousand and we’re less than 2 full months into 2010. I’m pretty happy with that pace. Also, I’ve been very vocal about how much disdain I have for the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA). Here is my history with that loan over the same time:

NJCLASS Loan Debt Today: $36 thousand

NJCLASS Loan Debt at 12/31/2009: $41 thousand

NJCLASS Loan Debt at 12/31/2008: $48 thousand

NJCLASS Loan Debt at 12/31/2007: $51 thousand

I don’t like the attitude of the organization that holds this particular loan and I’m putting all of my effort towards completely retiring this debt in the next 12 – 15 months. And I might have a few tricks up my sleeve to help reduce this debt quicker as time goes along…

Anyway, I’m too close to another milestone ($90 thousand) to spend any time celebrating right now. Be on the lookout for some more student loan good news in the next week to ten days…

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $91 thousand, which breaks down to $36 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $55 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

The Latest and Greatest with My NJHESAA Loan

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Ah yes… Time once again to take a quick look at my student loan for the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority. This loan aggravates me for a variety of reasons (which I’ll state below). I am pleased to announce, though, that I’ve made somewhat significant progress in paying down this loan to a less unruly level than when my repayment began. Since I began repaying the loan, I’ve reduced the principal due by a few thousand dollars, which is pretty good considering the interest rate.

Anyway, some things about this loan just make me (and thousands of others, I’m sure) mad:

  • Interest Rate: I’m paying some 7.33% interest on my NJCLASS loan. That’s just too high of an interest rate for a borrower like me, who has an 800 credit rating. For comparison’s sake, my Direct Loan from the federal government has a 4.25% interest rate – much more acceptable.
  • No Online Payment: I’m not sure how, in the year 2009, NJHESAA does not have an online repayment option. That’s crazy. When I graduated from Rutgers with my Masters Degree I had three student loans. One of them was to CitiBank. I was able to pay back the entire CitiBank loan (which was probably $8,000+) in less than a year because of the online payment options. NJHESAA is really missing out on getting an extra $50 here or $250 there in online payments. Either that, or they’ve strategically opted to not have an online payment gateway.
  • Balance Inquiries: In a related point, the NJHESAA has no active online resources for borrowers in repayment. In other words, I can’t log-on to their website and check my balance or see my previous payment history. All of this is available with the federal government’s Direct Loans program.
  • You’re Stuck: However, one of the most aggravating parts of the NJCLASS repayment is that you’re stuck with NJHESAA. I can go out and find better repayment terms from another lender, but I would not be able to pursue the improved terms without NJHESAA approving me taking out their entire loan. Let me rephrase that so everyone understands… I can go to Bank of America and get approved for a 4.5% loan specifically to repay my NJHESAA loan. However, I cannot repay my NJHESAA loan in full by switching to Bank of America without NJHESAA’s approval to do so. Talk about dealing in a fair marketplace…

One of the things that really irks me about this loan, though, is more of a historical aggravation in that NJHESAA once reported me to the credit bureaus as having paid 30 or 60 days late…while the loan was still being deferred because I was still in school! Talk about complete insanity!? And when I called them up to complain, they said that while they agreed that the report to the credit bureaus was an error on their part, there was nothing they could do about it. This negatively affected both my credit score and my Mother’s credit score since she was a co-signer at the time. Bear in mind that both my Mom and I have never made a late payment on any account at any point in time ever. Thankfully, I’ve disputed NJHESAA’s erroneous report with all three credit bureaus and they’ve removed the late payment error.

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While the entire student loan industry needs a vast amount of reform, at this point I’d settle for a company like NJHESAA getting itself into the 21st Century with an online payment and loan balance/information portal!

Stay Away from NJHESAA!

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For all of you high school seniors in New Jersey and current undergraduate students – this one is for you.

When looking to find a way to finance your education, stay AWAY from the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority! They are, by far, the most rotten folks that I’ve come across in my time as a college student. To begin with – they are NOT a public organization! That’s right, they may be called the NEW JERSEY HESAA, but they are not a public group. What does that mean? That means that they use higher interest rates and give little to no wiggle room when it comes to flexibility on repayment options. This is a private company, yet when you submit your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), some schools will list the NJHESAA as a source of funding. STAY AWAY!

And if you want to know what it’s like to deal with them once you graduate and it comes time to repay, it’s even worse. In short, their customer service motto might as well be summed up as “The customer is always wrong…and is a moron, too.”

Not once have I hung up the phone and not been aggravated after talking to these people. That is if you can get them on the phone! As I type this I am on minute 18 of being on hold since I called to ask them about a payment. That’s right, for 18 minutes of my life I’ve heard nothing but a mellow tune and some completely rude “for shorter wait times, use our automated system” messages.

Back to their “customer service” people. For those of you that don’t know, you can have your NJHESAA payments deferred if you are still in school. Well, after I graduated from my undergraduate school, I went right for my Master’s Degree. I went to school both during the school year and during the summers – which Rutgers has documented very well for me. Yet still, last summer these asses at the NJHESAA randomly listed me as not being at least a part-time student for the month of June (which was false) and then in August, they reported me to the credit bureaus for not paying my monthly payment.

Bear in mind, I had no monthly payment and after they realized their mistake in June, they immediately put me back as “deferred” in July. Yet still, they wanted that mysterious, random payment from June 2005 (which they never got because it was completely uncalled for). After battling with them and telling them that they were wrong for putting me into the credit agencies, they still claim that they are 100% right about their mistake. Rutgers told them that they were wrong and I told them that they were wrong, yet they still believe in themselves as being right. Morons. By the way, minute 24 on hold.

Thankfully, I have Triple Advantage Credit Reporting from Experian and when I told the Experian people about the complete disaster that the NJHESAA is and how they goofed on their records and proved themselves incorrect by reinstating my part-time status in July 2005, they removed the “missed payment” from my record. I like Experian, they do a good job of protecting regular consumers like me from bastard assholes like NJHESAA.

As a side note, you should know that I have never missed a payment on anything that I’ve ever had to make a payment on. When I was $25K in credit card debt, I still made every monthly payment. When I owed $15K for my new used car, I made every monthly payment. I’ve never missed a cell phone payment or a water bill payment. When I had a landline phone, I paid the scam artists at Verizon every month on time. My credit record indicates this and that is what I believe led Experian to remove the stupid claim that NJHESAA made on my account.

OH! How could I forget the worst part about an NJHESAA loan? You cannot consolidate it anywhere but with them! That’s right. It’s a private loan and they will only allow you to consolidate it with them. Don’t look for this statement on their website or look for it in any of the promotional materials that you are sent (unless you love reading the fine “fuck you” print at the bottom of the page). They won’t tell you that!

I can only imagine what would happen if the public-at-large held NJHESAA responsible to its namesake. How dare they go around claiming that they help make college affordable? What a sorry crock of bullshit these assholes are. I’m going to end this post now after a full 30 minutes after being on hold.

Scumbags. STAY AWAY!