Great Lakes Educational Loan Services Reviews

When Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, my (student loan) payment was delayed but I was unaware. GL emailed me and I called to see what was going on. I had never missed a payment in 7 years. They put my account in forbearance which it still is but I continue to make my payments as always. The more you communicate with them, the worse your situation becomes. They feel the need to do whatever they want, your requests are irrelevant. So I've learned the less I communicate with them the better off I am, just make the payments and see if they apply them to our account. There is no watchdog over this entity and they well know it.

I called and Great Lakes said they will remove the forbearance. It was because I clicked into the consolidation option. I wanted to see what kind of rates a consolidation would give me but didn't confirm to finalize it. I'm not sure how this would've triggered for my loans to be in forbearance without any warning or confirmation from me. It's something that should be fixed but in the end, it's a misunderstanding. I wanted to delete my comment before publish, but now I can only resolve it. I'm relieved that the forbearance issue will be resolved soon.

You cannot make an extra payment with these guys unless you do it ON your due date! You also can't pay off individual loan amounts without going through 100 extra steps to email and call and otherwise contact them for a specific pay off amount for a specific loan "token" (loan ID) that they then have to send you separately than the website. I tried to pay an extra payment two days after my due date and gave them permission to allocate 100% of it to a specific loan token only to have them allocate it as they chose to all of the loans since it was "in the new billing cycle."

I have been making on time loan payments for years. Recently I have been trying to target the smaller loans with extra payments one at a time to get them off the books. My regular monthly payment is $584. I have been able to get "paid ahead" according to them by three months. Yet confusingly in the same information box they say I am only "paid ahead" $668. Both things can't be true.

Followed every instruction on the site for how to set up what happens if I pay excess... AS IN OVER AND ABOVE WHAT I OWE THAT MONTH SINCE GL DOESN'T UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF EXCESS! Made an excess payment...and the morons STILL applied it to all 12 loans instead of the one I’m trying to pay down with their robbery high interest! I called...girl says, "Yeah", I will need to call in on the exact date of a draft to make extra payments so they go where I want. So set an alarm! I have to be available to get on the phone the day of the autopay to do an excess even though it is 2018! Why is this difficult for these idiots! I read all the time about people sending extra & yet their balances never come down. This is the mafia! How are they allowed to do this! They are idiots!

These mafioso incarnates will hound and harass you, offering no real help with your loan repayment plan. You can send in supporting documents to try to get lower payments during hardships. Even when they are your only documents, given to you by your employer, and they will always say they are invalid documents. The documents they demand are not any sort of document someone would have at their disposal on a normal basis. They will wait until the last minute of your temporary forbearance to let you know YOU have failed to send in documents you have sent in several weeks prior, thinking the issue has been resolved. They will call, email, and text you threats multiple times a day. They pretend to sound empathetic all while digging your grave for you. NEVER take a loan out with these thugs, you will regret it!

We have recently been informed we have a college loan from 2009 that has gone unpaid. My child graduated in 2012. Never knew about the loan. Never on our credit report until just recently. But showed we were up to date on the loan? Original loan was 42000. Has now ballooned to 75000. They dropped the ball on their end. Now we are paying the price. Tried to get them to help. Basically said, "You're on your own. Good luck."

My first reaction when I heard that my loans might be transferred to another loan servicer was, "Oh no!!! Nobody takes care of me like they do!" Great Lakes has serviced my loans for almost five years, and they have always been helpful and very kind through all the changes that I continually make given my line of work. The customer reps (phone) are patient and explain every step and option in detail so that I can get the best one. Really, thank you!

IMO this loan provider is nothing more than a scam. My student loan was in default resulting in an offset on my tax refund. I applied for a consolidation loan from these clowns. I was told that my loan would be funded on the 29th of January IF I waived my right to change the loan. This was perfect for my situation. The new loan would fund the same day as my refund. Which is Monday... Saturday I received an email saying that it would fund on the 30th. So I call the Dept of Education. They inform me that if that's the case my refund would refunded. Well it will but not to me or the Dept of Ed... But yes to guess who Great Nigerian Lakes.

For the last 3.5 three years my wages have been garnished. Each year I have called and asked for what the beginning balance was of this loan, and what is the balance of the loan at the beginning of a new year. No one can ever give me this information and the papers they send me in the mail does not explain anything. This loan service does not like to work with people, every time upon calling you get the runaround or it goes to a voicemail for you to leave a message in hopes someone calls back. For three and a half years I have tried to get my starting balance and my new balance and a statement showing how each payment is being applied to my account. I would not recommend this servers to anyone. If I hear the name Great Lakes Student Loan I would run as far away as possible. This company does not like to work with people, it is their way or no way. Run, run, run, when you hear this name as a student loan server.

In November 2017, I became unemployed. I contacted Great Lakes to let them know I was unemployed and unable to make my student loan payments. I had to send in my documentation proving that I was unemployed. I received an email stating my student loan payments would resume in March 2018 and my payments are more than unemployment. I called and talked to an absolutely clueless woman. She said “yeah we received your paperwork. It was rejected because it’s unclear.” She couldn’t tell me what was unclear — the documentation came from the state unemployment office. They postponed my payments for another 2 months while they further investigate. I’m unemployment. They see I’m on unemployment. I’m not bringing in the big bucks. I’m already stressed enough and now add this to the mix. This company is ridiculous.

Great Lakes is my federal loan servicing company. However, they are extremely mismanaged and offer very inconsistent answers. I applied for an Income Driving Repayment Plan (IDRP) and was told that my monthly payment would be estimated at $91. After filling out the necessary documents and submitting my paperwork, I received a bill for $339 instead. And so I called back and then was told that my application was never processed and that I have to start all over. Mind you, interest accrues daily so cause of their mistake, I have to pay extra interest.

I consolidated my $15,000 student loan debt from a two-year technical college. When it got to them they said I owed $35,000. I contacted them several times and I was only told it gathered interest. I have no idea what to do next. It's twice the amount and I can not afford the payments.

The loans interests are too high even I have given them 200 per month. They would want the rate to go up for 215 per month. This is nuts when I was given the rate of 162-180. I decided to pay higher but it didn't satisfy them enough since they want to raise the payments and I working so hard for these loans.

I changed my banking info to my new bank account and had auto payments but the auto payments are not affected when you change your bank account but nowhere on the site does it tell you that. Then when I reached out to customer service 3x after I'd been hit with over $120 fees for them withdrawing 2 months in a row for an account I was in process of closing, they said that it takes 10 days to go through and there is nothing they can do about the fees. They are crap!

My dad has a parent plus loan through them which I am repaying. They have based it on his income making my payments over $900 a month. They would only lower them by half until I started paying on them. I could not even afford half that payment on top of my other student loans and bills that I have. We have tried to get them to lower it and all they want to tell us is they need me to make full payments in order to lower it more. Now anytime we call they tell me they need to talk to my dad since it's his information and they tell my dad they need to talk to me since I'm paying it.

This company continues to state they are not responsible while they are, for stopping a garnishment to my payroll AFTER setting up a rehabilitation on a defaulted loan. Tried calling all the way to the Director of the agency they have hired, no return calls. But they still continue to garnish my wages on a new job as a new graduate.

Hello, I am a veteran and got out the military last year but as soon as I got hired by the post office I wanted to change the income on my income driven repayment plan since my income has dropped. I was informed by several representatives from their company that I needed to send verification of my income which a pay stub would be considered acceptable. So, when I received my check from the post office, I tore off that pay stub which is the original and sent it to Great Lakes mailing address. They acknowledged that they received it but claimed they couldn't read it which I am confused about. The payment stub was typed in dark letters and numbers that came directly from the post office and was the original copy, so I don't understand how I mail in a readable document that anybody could read that is literate but when it reaches Great Lakes, their staff cannot read it.

I mailed my payment to Great Lakes over 17 days ago. They still did not received the payment? The post office gave me tracking number that my envelope was delivered 15 days ago, this means only one thing. Great Lakes keep these envelopes for 28 + days to make sure my % interest will apply for the following month. I am with debt of $9.000 but there is thousands of people like me. Let's do the math!!! This is FRAUD!!! I spoke to account manager and he said he doesn't know where the payment is. They haven't received it YET. Post office confirmation of delivery 15 days ago. HMMM??? Really Great Lakes??? I think I am hiring attorney to look into WHY this is happening at Great Lakes? No one to go get mail? No one to open received mail? Fraud.

I was duped into taking out a predatory loan back in 2007 for a school that has since been shut down for their predatory schemes. I went to ITT Tech for about a semester and a half before I realized that the school was a complete scam. Anyhow, I signed a Promissory Note in 2007 for what I thought was just one loan from Sallie Mae/Navient Solutions. I had no idea how the student loan system worked and that is an entirely different complaint. It turned out that the school took out 5 loans total for different amounts. Anyhow, I quickly defaulted on the loan because I felt like I was duped and I wasn't going to pay $7000 for a worthless education. I paid much more than $7000 but that was just the loan portion. The school made me bring my entire Montgomery G.I. bill to them and then I still owed them another $3000 on top of the loans that they already got.

2.5 years ago I began researching the best repayment plan for my student loan which was slightly upwards of $50,000. After much research and calling Great Lakes to speak with multiple representatives, I decided that paying the full amount of $608 a month was the best option and I set up the payment on Autopay to receive a discount of 5% over the lifetime of the loan.

I have been paying off my student loan for 6 years. My total loan was for 40,000. I have put at least $10,000 into sporadic payments over the years, and have been paying anywhere from $220-$400 every month for the past two years. My balance is still over $39,000. It never goes down. This place is terrible to work with, I am certain they are ripping us off.

My husband was injured on the job and forced to apply for disability. After five years of homelessness and agony because he was unable to work, the disability came through in Jan of 2017 (this year). The first 2 months the money deposited for his disability was the proper amount, but when the 3rd month came we were surprised to find out there was a garnishment of over $250.00. After investigation we found that Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation were the culprits behind the offset, claiming they were collecting for the Dept. of Education for a student loan. Problem is, he didnt attend ANY colleges and never applied for any loan. The DOE informed us they had no record of him owing anything, that they had no record of him at all.

This company is taking money out of my paycheck but there is no paperwork that can be found with my company. No one knows how it got set up. It just started coming out and I found the money was going to Great Lakes. Now they want to offset and take my entire tax return as well. When I called their automated system it tells me I am current and there is nothing presently due! So why do an offset when I am paying them every month.

My student loans are 2% and 4% interest and created in 2014 and shortly after purchased by GL. It's 2017 and they're the SAME amount. I'm set up for the automatic payments through their site for the wimpy discount (I don't see it??) and I'm "paid ahead" until May 2018 even though I've selected the "uncommon" allocation to have all my extra payments go towards principal. Yet, I can't figure out how a $6000 student loan is still $6000 three years later with extra payments...

My daughter has 2 student loans in repayment. She recently lost her job and didn't pay last month's on time. Since we co-signed for her, we started to receive phone calls. Her monthly payment is $235, but when they call they tell you that you owe $470. I questioned this since the extra $235 isn't due for another 20 days. Their excuse is it is now in the next billing cycle. I don't know about anyone else, but you ca harassing us for a payment that isn't even due yet. So this weekend I went on and paid for her the $235 past due amount. I have a confirmation # and I'm still getting phone calls looking for last month's and what isn't due yet. This has to be illegal, I would love if anyone knows where I can file a formal complaint about this practice.

I graduated with my Master's in 2016. It almost marks 1 year since my original Income-Driven Repayment Plan request was submitted. Every month or every other month they contact me saying they are missing something. I have documented every phone conversation, every email, every form I've submitted. All the while, they are billing me for monthly payments upwards of $1,700/month and my credit is trashed because of this. They do nothing to correct or remedy their mistakes and I as a borrower that had no say in their acquiring my loan, am taking the hit. How do they get away with this? And how is it fair that we, those carrying student loan debt, have no recourse in these instances???

My student loan was sold from ACS to Great Lakes. Great lakes automatically and without my permission put my loans into deferment. Great lakes also could not locate my student loan payment that was made to my previous lender while in transition. The staff was unable to help in any way and while they offered an apology they did nothing to fix the situation. If your loan is sold to Great Lakes, I recommend that you refinance with a more reputable institution.

Great Lakes processed Loans that were not Student Loans in my name that I did not sign for nor did I receive any funds from them at all. Even after I made them aware of this, they Defaulted the Loans, that I did not sign for, and placed the several defaulted amounts on my credit report. They claimed that the Police told them that it was me. They never acknowledged that my signature was not anywhere to be found. Then further, tried to garnish my wages to pay for someone else's loans!!!

Great Lakes, has for the past two years failed to accept and investigate documented allegations that I fraudulently received my federal financial aid, which would be a felony. I have emailed, called, spoke with supervisors, called back and they absolutely refuse to pull the levers that would compel an investigation over these allegations. At the same time constantly billing me to pay it off. Education and federal student aid is a racket. Look at Corinthian colleges that have been shuttered for their fraud scheme. Just because Cal State San Bernardino is involved, Great Lakes, continues to refuse to do their due diligence.