I was obediently paying down my school loans via the Sallie Mae website when one day I logged in and noticed that my school loan info was gone . Well now, that sucks! I had paid off a couple of the loans w/ a few more to go and was shocked to see my outstanding loan info gone. That was in July . Since then I've found out the following:

1) I've got to start paying some other Company that I've never heard of
2) This Unknown Company has bundled all of my separate loans into one giant loan
3) My interest rates have jumped from 3.3% and 4.1% to over 5% !!

School Loan Interest Rates

I had several loans where about half had one interest rate and the other half had another interest rate. Well, when the Company started billing me for school loan payments they raised my interest rate!! Did I miss something ? I thought that school loans rates were locked . Am I wrong ?

The Giant Loan: I didn't ask for

Another issue I have is that all of my unpaid loans were bundled into one large loan. I had a bit of a strategy where I was paying each of my school loans off individually . On the smaller school loans where the payment was under $20/month I could overpay or even double or triple the monthly payment. I found I could do this when I had available funds and this would push back the next monthly payment date way into the future. My larger school loans always got the minimum payment even when overpaying the smaller school loans. I liked being able to pay this way since it allowed me to pay off the smaller loans WAY AHEAD OF SCHEDULE. Now I can't do that since all my school loans have been lumped

I don't mind paying down my school loans but I do object to having my loans bundled together esp when I did not take out The Giant School Loan(TM) , but rather , I took out several smaller school loans over time. It seems like I'm unneedlessly facing an additional burden of having to make payments *NOT* on the financial product that I wanted, but rather, on a very different financial product.

Real Company or Sham?

The Company that I've never heard of refuses to 'prove' that they are a legitamate company. Each time I call I get blown off w/ something like "How could you not have heard of us?" . Enough already with the arrogance!!? Do want my money or not?!? If so , give me something that tells me that you're a real entity. With all of the scams I hear about on the internet how do *I* know that this company is legit especially if they're not willing to offer some sort of validation. I remember a case where customers were receiving bills from a company called "Horizon" that was impersonating "Verizon" . Needless to say more than a few customers got bilked out of money. ( Did I mention that I majored in Criminal Justice ? ) So, before I start sending my hard-earned pennies into oblivion is there anyway to know if the company is legit ???

Well I'm still seeking answers to these questions but I'd love to hear about your own school loan situation over at the School Loans Suck Forum. Oh yeah, and tell your friends!

Talk about your school loan situation
About the Author

Seriously in debt undergraduate looking for best methods to pay down school loans.