Great Lakes Higher Education Corp.

My wife had a loan through them until they recently sold it to another company without her knowledge. We have continued to make payments to them with the booklet they sent. We spoke to the new company after we received a late payment letter. The new company told us that they would likely get the money from Great Lakes withing 30 days if we don't have another loan through them, which we do. No, those payments we made may have been put to the other loan. Also, she was apparently set up on some plan that you paid your interest first and principal later. As soon as the interest was paid, they sold that loan. I feel that this should be illegal. It is absolutely immoral.

Great Lakes is a predatory lender. I work in education and have had the pleasure of working with many solid financial aid professionals. I know what constitutes good business practice when it comes to student loans. The Great Lakes sham is providing students loans (good thing) and then keeping that golden goose known as your principal as high as possible (bad thing). The loans are basically interest only, so payments made in good faith and on time do not reduce that principal in any meaningful amount.

I suppose this is legal and contractually binding. After all, debtors signed on the dotted line and agreed to the terms. Why not? As an aspiring graduate, we all thought that we were nobly pursuing an American icon--the diploma and subsequent prosperity associated with bettering ourselves and society. Well, that idea runs aground when the monthly payments made on time barely dent the principal and usury kicks in. If we are playing fair and making those payments judiciously, that principal just doesn't reduce and Great Lakes makes a huge profit.

Something's not quite right in this calculus but I'm guessing these practices are legal. I hope the federal government takes a long look at predatory lending in higher education. I know I'm not the only one who looks at the balance sheet--interest accrues daily--and scratches his head.

We have a $60k + (Parent Plus) student loan now serviced through Great Lakes. In addition to the scheduled automatic payment, I make an extra monthly payment as close to the auto payment date so more goes to principal. At 8.30am today (Friday12/30), I made an extra $500 online payment but their website says it won't be credited until Tues 1/3! Their office is closed today. I tried to call.

Four or almost five days before posting to the balance makes a big difference in the amount applied to principal while the interest clock ticks. I cannot believe this is ethical or legal. Normally, you need to make an online payment before noon for posting that day. Fair enough. But my money is "floating" doing nothing. Multiply this by the class of thousands of other people like me and Great Lakes is raking in a lot of extra money with this. I sent them an e-mail but prior contacts on other things don't encourage me.

I went to Decker Online and they closed before graduation. Great Lakes didn't forgive the loan. They are still coming after me for the money. It's going to affect my credit. I'm not even able to go back to school right now.

My loans are currently in forbearance but I still received a phone call by customer service telling me that I have to make payments during the forbearance period. This was the third phone call from them in the same day, and a different agent each time. Each time, the customer service person asked me what the last customer service person had told me. But even worse than this, which should be considered harassment, is the unbelievable fact that their records are now showing that they have never received a single piece of paperwork from me in the last 4 years. They do have a computer record of every call and notation in the computer file that something was received. I have been requesting for the past year that their IT department check into this, since they are the only people I have dealt with that has lost all documentation. This still has not happened. The latest thing that prompted this spate of calls was the loss of the application for discharge due to disability. Since there is no copy of the paperwork, I received a letter stating that they would be taking my Medicare, Medicaid, and disability check.

Common sense would make it obvious that if I receive Medicare under the age of 50, I am disabled. If I receive Medicaid, I am living below the poverty level. If I receive a Social Security disability check, then maybe I am disabled. Since I live on less than $600 a month, I have no choice but to move back into my car so I can make payments. Since my disability is progressive and degenerative, I cannot live without my only source of health insurance.

Several times I have called GL to have my payment due date changed because my mortgage is due just before their due date. I've changed the due date twice online, know for a fact that when I changed it last month for this month that it worked. However, I got notice on the 21st of the month that my bill was late! So I go in to see what in the world is going on and sure enough, they've changed my due date back for this and the next month to the 5th, making my payment late. That has to be illegal, right?! I've also called several times and tried to talk to someone live to fix this. The result is always, wait a few days and call us after the payment (that I've already made) is posted.

So first issue is, why is the payment I made three days ago not posted? That's why I waited three days to call you in the first place, now I have to wait three more?! Then I have to argue with someone who tells me I did not successfully change my payment because they don't see any record on their end. Except the problem with that is I got to a confirmation page that says my new date is the 22nd, and this has happened more than once! Then they claim they have no record of it! Not sure that's what I'd want to go with GL, at the very least that makes you extremely inept (and highly corrupt seems more likely).

Additionally, they are very pushy that I should call to make this change, not to do it online. One girl came right out and said it doesn't always work, then the next one I talk to says they have no record. Something very sketchy is up here. If I can switch loan handlers, I will, and highly recommend everyone and their mother, brother, father, sister and etc. to do so too!

Basically, I am here to echo everything that everyone else has said. I called them with a simple request: cancel my automatic debiting. According to their website, you cannot do this online, you have to call. I was told that because I was just switching bank accounts from Chase to PNC, I didn't need to cancel. I just needed to put my new bank information online. I told them that because it was so close to my withdrawal date and the labor day weekend, I would feel more comfortable if they did what I requested them to do.

I wanted them to cancel my automatic withdrawal so I could just make a manual payment with my new account. They again insisted that this was not necessary and to just change my information online because they don't deduct until the night before. I thought that sounded odd, but had already asked 'are you sure' about 3 times, so I foolishly believed them and did as instructed.

Not unsurprisingly, it didn't work and they over drafted the account that I had begged them to close. I was furious so I called. Then, I was told eventually that I would be credited the money and that they would pay my overdraft fees. The following day, they called me and told me that 'they had changed their minds' and stated that they were not at fault. I pointed out to them that this happened because of the misinformation they gave me, and they basically said that when this happens, 'it's their word against mine.' Apparently, they scam people like this a lot.

At one point, the dumb customer service lady told me, "it says here that I'm not supposed to argue with you." Genius. I bet in high school plays she also said "exit stage left" out loud, too. Like any good scam, of course, there is no hope of ever actually speaking to a manager. I still can't tell if their customer service's tactic is to play dumb to frustrate you or if they really are idiots that need the same thing explained to them over and over again. A loan is a contract two or more parties enter, it is not a license for one party to make up whatever they want one day on a whim and then change their minds.

They are extremely unethical! I contacted Great Lakes to set up a payment plan with them four months ago after completing a loan modification on my home. I started college again on July 5th, 2011 and instead of contacting me (although they had all of my information), they defaulted on my loan in August. They acted unethically and they now want me to pay $744 per month or they are threatening to garnish my wages and ruin my credit for life. Also, the $744 would be applied to interest only. Therefore, the balance of the principal would never decrease. Is this even legal?

I called customer service to ask two questions about my account. The woman who had answered the phone and mumbled her name attempted to answer my first question about the posting of a payment I had scheduled to be drafted on the 15th. It being the 16th and no payment being made, I was concerned that I would be considered late. She assured me that the payment would show up as posted by the 17th and would be credited for the 15th, but could provide no explanation as to why, nor could she provide any proof other than her own word that it would happen.

My second question was to ask why I had payments being made where 100% of the payment went to interest and none to principal. On an installment loan, even if a payment is late, a portion of each payment must go to principal in order to pay down the balance of the loan. The woman rudely responded that I had chosen a 25 year payment term, so not much of my payments would be going to principal right now. Obviously she didn't fully understand loan amortization, so I explained to her how at the beginning of repayment of an installment loan. Very little of the payments go to principal, but some of the payments go to principal.

Her response was "What's your point?". When I attempted to respond to that rude question, she cut me off and yelled "I can't talk to you if you don't stop talking!" Then she explained that interest accrues daily and my payment was just enough to cover the interest, which again showed her ignorance of amortization of installment loans. Even though her explanation did not accomplish anything, I said "If you would have taken the trouble to answer my question in the beginning of the call, I would not have gotten upset". Her response was "Well, it's a two-way street".

This woman showed a total lack of respect for the customer (worst trait of an employee in "Customer Service"), zero professionalism and in the end did not satisfactorily answer either of my questions. The only result of my call was that I spent 10 minutes being yelled at, interrupted and talked down to by an ignorant customer service agent.

Great Lakes is a horrible loan service with a terrible customer service department. If you call their customer service line, be prepared to argue with a degenerate who will treat you like an enemy.

Understandably Great Lakes may feel the need to hold recent graduates hands as they enter the world of repayment; however I have reached the limit of my patience with them. Their phone calls (to me) seem harassing and harsh.

If a customer's payment hasn't arrived and been processed by the due date, they start calling. They have a set late date that is on every payment stub in their repayment booklet. This obviously shows the late date and the fees that will be required if a payment is late. However, shortly after the due date, they will proceed calling the customer as well as anyone else who may be on their file, in my instance my parents cosigned looking to scold and berate them for failing to be on time.

While I understand paying bills on time is an important lesson to learn in life and one that will benefit everyone involved. There are simply some days where things are sent out after they should have been for various reasons. I have made every loan payment to each lender that I owe, often making larger payments than are set to lower my interest and balance as soon as possible. I feel harassed when Great Lakes calls me before something is late to demand the exact date. I mailed my payment or for electronic billing information rather than waiting for the check to arrive.

Not only did they intimidate and scare me the first time they called, they willfully deceive their customers by telling them that their only option is to pay double the amount due. One month when I realized I had forgotten to mail my payment, I called them to request that they take it out of my account electronically so that it would process faster. I did not have my paperwork in front of me, so I naively agreed to pay double the amount I was due. After realizing that they were to be withdrawing more than normal.

I called back to request more information as to why I was being punished in this way. They informed me after several minutes of questions on my part that the payment was for two months. The individual whom I spoke to was very helpful and told me (almost secretively) that I did not have to accept this. If in the future they called, I was to remind them that they could include a late fee, but that I was not required to provide the next month's payment at the same time.

He also stated that they did not typically tell people that it would cover the next month's payment so that Great Lakes would receive additional money without the majority of customers questioning anything. There have been times where I have waited until a day close to the due date and have called Great Lakes myself to set up an electronic payment to ensure that I had a paycheck coming in before they received my check and because it can be easier to do than sending a payment in by post. When I do this, they typically try to make me pay the next month's payment as well. Some of their employees are kind enough to point out that it is an advance payment, but others will not.

Additionally, they will occasionally say that I can make an electronic payment for the correct amount only if I agree to have the next payment in on or before the next due date. While I understand the value of paying things on time or before they are due, as a recent graduate there are times when I feel the need to take advantage of those days in between the due date and the late date. I am responsible, but I feel that I should not have to jump through hoops to make a payment in the amount agreed upon.

I hate to image any other graduates who may have not taken the time to ask questions suffering financially or emotionally from these harassing phone calls and attempts to manipulate additional money from them. I have student loans through Sallie Mae and the Department of Education as well and I have never received phone calls from them and if I call to ask questions I never feel manipulated or that I am being scolded for being negligent when I am not. I now make a point to mail my bill to Great Lakes on time, but I am sure I will be receiving a phone call due to the holiday mail slowing down the post. When they call, I will be firm and clear that I have a payment in the mail and I will not accept that I need to pay additional funds to make up for something.

I finished up my degree in 1999. I got behind on my student loan payments and it went into default. They garnished my wages each pay (twice a month) they were taking almost $250 so that's $500 a month for almost 4 - 5 years. Then took my income tax of over $6,000 and my stimulus check of $1,100, in 2008. I lost my job in 2008 so they must have taken my loan out of default status. Now that I'm back to work they have it back in default which has added $3,000 in fees.

I don't understand after paying all this money for so many years they say I still over $30,000. My loans were only $27,000. Where did all my money go to? Now the DCS collections want to set up payments that are out of my budget. I have talked to 3 different people to get this taken care of & as of today 12/22/10 no one has returned my call to talk about this so-called income based payment plan they want to set me up on. All I'm asking is where all my money?

I received a letter in the mail saying I owed a little over $5,678 to Great Lakes. Ok, fine. I had money in my account, so I went to the website to pay it off. Keep in mind that my loans are not due to start until December of 2010. I got the letter in July. So when I go to the website to pay it, I read a part about the 6.8% interest accruing daily. Great. I'd better rush to pay this one off. I get to the part where I confirm payment. The amount is more than it says in the letter. What?! Interest has already started accruing? My loan isn't even due yet. So if I had waited to pay it off until then, I would have owed them close to double the amount. Bad business, people. I was one of the lucky ones though, I guess.

I took student loan out for one year in 1984, about 8K. I didn't finish school and couldn't get a job so loan went into default. I got a job, started making minimal payments, got married in 1994 still making payments. I paid $200-250/month for 13-14 years. I still owe about 14k. They keep selling the loan and adding more fees. I asked for itemized account, they never furnished complete account. They now stop me from taking any other student loans because they say I am in default. I need five hours to complete my degree.

I was contacted on May 24 and told by a rep that my student loan was going to go into default unless I made a $700 payment. He informed me that he could set the payment to come out in a month and this would stop the default. I contact Great Lakes on the 25th to make sure everything was going properly and I was informed that my loan defaulted on June 21st. Since this I have made many phone calls to Great Lakes and was told that the rep who set up the payment no longer works for the company and that he screwed up and that is why my loan defaulted. He should have set up the payment to come out on the 21st and not the 24th.

Great Lakes basically told me that this is unfortunate but there is nothing they can do, that this happens. And to beat it all, my $700 payment was still cashed and nobody can tell me what is going to happen with the funds. This has to be Illegal! I am now in default status with over $2,000 in extra fees attatched to my defaulted loan.

I was told by great lakes rep on the 25th that the payment would be voided and not come out of my account. I used this money to pay bills and then the payment come out on the 6/29 and caused hundres of dollars in bounce check fees. I now cannot make my mortgage payment which was just modified and I was current. I have panic attacks and on medication and this has caused my problems with my health.

My daughter obtained a college loan form Great Lakes and I am a co-signer. Great Lakes will not allow my daughter to consolidate her loan and will not change my status from a 1, individual account, to a 5, co-signer. They said that Mark or Mike (have the information at home) said that the Federal Government has no control over this. When I log into their system with my SS number, it says I have no outstanding loans. This code has impacted the status and the amount I can borrow on the refinancing of my home mortgage.

Their attitude has been anything but helpful, saying it is their policy to do this and so sorry, that is the way the phone system works. What really got me is when they said the federal government has no control over them on what they use for a status. I would like other college students and parent co-signers to know the reputation of this company and that they ** with the co-signer credit availability. How can we proceed to correct this as Great Lakes says I am the individual account, even though if you inquire their system, I have no open loans with them.

I graduated in 2008 and spent about a year making all my payments to Great Lakes. Then I was accepted into a teaching program in Spain that will be used as my practicum for grad school. I received documents from my school stating that I was in Spain under a student visa doing my practicum so I could have any loans deferred during this time. I have 3 different loans between Great Lakes (US Bank), FAFSA and Sallie Mae. The other companies accepted my paperwork without problems after I had faxed them in mid-October.

Thinking everything was fine, I was shocked when my father emailed me in mid-December saying that Great Lakes was calling him saying that I hadn't made a payment in over 60 days. I called, explained my current situation and was told that my fax was never received. Finding it strange that all my other faxes to the other companies went through at the same time with no problem, I re-sent my deferment forms to GL with my email address in case of any problems.

I kept the fax confirmations because this happened to me 3 other times. It wasn't until I finally faxed the documents to my mother in the States and had her try her luck with them that GL 'finally' received my documents; only when she called GL directly after and waited on the phone until someone confirmed that they had received everything.

I find out a few weeks after that there was a problem with my documents. One of the pages was written in Spanish (Well, I am in Spain?). GL told me that they couldn't put my deferment through until this page was re-sent in English signed by an administrator from my school. I understand that the official language in the US is English but almost half of our population speaks Spanish. GL even offers loans and information in Spanish. I couldn't believe they were using that as an excuse especially since the most important information of these documents was in English. Well, I spent almost 2 weeks trying to find some administrator in Spain that was capable of writing this document in English.

To make sure there were no more problems, I had emailed GL asking for an alternate fax number in case this document was also surprisingly not received. I would have mailed in everything if I knew it was going to be this much of a hassle. But I wanted to do it the quickest way so the phone calls would stop. Anyways, I sent the document to both numbers and kept the confirmation pages. It was now early February. During this time, my father was still receiving calls but now from US Bank loan collectors. I called GL after I sent the document and a very nice lady told me that it took a few days for the deferment to process completely but that everything should be fine and updated in their systems.

Next week, I received an email from US Bank asking me to call them. I did and was told that their records from GL didn't show anything about a deferment. I explained my frustrations over my dealings with GL which the agent was very considerate about and immediately got a hold of someone from GL. We had a 3-way conference call where I again asked why my faxes keep on disappearing on GLs end. I asked US Bank if I could send these documents to them directly but was told no. They gave me yet another fax number to try at GL and told me not to worry that they would help me figure this out. They then said to give them a few days after they received the document and email GL to confirm that it was finally completed.

I sent an email on February 26 and the next Monday, I received a response saying that they were no longer handling my loan and I now had to go entirely through US Bank. Confused to no end, I called the number that I was given to US Bank in the email. I talked to a young guy that, yet nice, didn't know anything about loans and told me that my name came up nowhere in their systems. He put me on hold and checked GLs which also didn't have me in the system. So his only response was, "Wow, that's odd. It must in transit or something; I guess uh, why don't you call back Friday to check?" I reminded him that I was calling from Spain and every single one of these pointless phone calls was costing me a ridiculous amount of money. However, I knew I had no other choice.

I couldn't even wait until Friday because I received a very upsetting email from my father once again saying that he received a phone call but this time is was really bad. He gave me this lady's number to call at US Bank. I did Friday morning expecting another run-around. This time it was not the case. She rudely told me that GL turned my loan over to them at US Bank because I had run out of time and they now required me to pay the entire sum of my loan immediately. I told this lady about my situation and the extensive problems and delays I encountered through GL. She told me to tell it to my lawyer because she didn't want to hear it. I was told I had no other options. Either come up with the settlement of $13,000 or meet them in court.

I explained to her that I was in school and didn't have that kind of money. I asked her why I wasn't given notice about this when I had called 3 days before or any of the other times. She said that I was told that I had until the 28th of February which was a lie. She then told me that being in school was not an excuse because I didn't even qualify for an in-school deferment. Adding to my already massive disbelief, she told me that I was faxing my documents to the wrong office the entire time that I should have been dealing with some office in Cincinnati for my deferment.

Nothing she was saying made sense to me and nothing about any of this was ever mentioned to me in my dozen conversations with Great Lakes or US Bank. I honestly have no idea what to think now. I am currently contacting my lawyer to figure out my next step should be. I luckily have majority of my emails and fax confirmations to show my struggles. I have never in my life felt so deceived and manipulated.

I signed up to consolidate my loans with Great Lakes in order to get a fixed interest rate and because they offered a 1% reduction in the interest rate after on-time payments. When I agreed to the loan consolidation I signed up for automatic payments. Unfortunately I later received a letter that because my first payment was late, I was not longer eligible for the 1% reduction in interest.

Apparently, the "processing time" it took for the automatic payments to start surpassed the due date of my first payment. I would never knowingly have missed a payment, particularly given the consequences, and have not missed a payment since (I have been in repayment for about 4 years). I am suspicious that the processing time to initiate automatic payments is purposefully long enough such that the first payments are missed.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

I only wanted information. I have an Educational Student loan ($46,687) that was turned into a ($108,772) debt. I was giving false information by Great Lakes Educational loan Services, Inc. I received information in the mail to consolidate my loan. I notified them to ask questions of how they could help me. I was told to put my information in electronically. Once that has been completed they would send me a break down of how much it would cost me. I never saw any numbers.

Two days later I received a break down and a Promissory Note stating that they sent a check to my creditor to pay off my loan. I emailed and called the company IMMEDIATELY telling them to CANCEL the Promissory Note, but they refuse to cancel. I could never pay this debt off. I want them to resend this Promissory Note due to false information. It was only three days...I feel that I was trapped into accepting this Promissory Note. I don't agree at all with those numbers.

GLHE is misleading in it's loan terms.