- Joined
- Feb 4, 2013
- Messages
- 28,659
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- Location
- Charleston, South Carolina
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Very Conservative
Soooo... Yeah. I got a notification on my facebook feed a while back saying that my college was offering student loan consolidation and even forgiveness through some government program or another. I went to go and check it out.
I tried calling the college student aid office, and they didn't know how to do anything. They told me to look at the government site.
The first site I went to (which went deliberately out of its way to make itself look like a legitimate government site) swore up and down that they could get my payment down to $29.99 a month, with forgiveness of any unpayed loans in 20 years or less... They just want a "one time payment" of $300.00 first. I googled around, and the general consensus seems to be that they're pretty damn shady, and probably a scam.
So, I decided to be a bit more careful and found the actual government website instead. What did I find there? Hordes and hordes of technical information and jargon I neither understand nor give a damn about, with no telephone number to call anywhere in sight. I finally had to google "What is the number for federal student aid" just to find the damn thing.
Then, the best I was able to get was a stupid automated line which couldn't seem to understand a word I was saying. After like my fourth time shouting "I SAID, 'MORE OPTIONS,' YOU PIECE OF ****!!!" it eventually kicked me back to a human operator.
What did I find there?
Oh, yeah. She was some early twenties mouth-breather who didn't sound like she had ever finished High School, who didn't know a damn thing about student loan consolidation or how to get me in touch with someone who does. She basically just spent 10 minutes mumblingly reading through the information on the website, and telling me to go apply for myself.
Ummm... Really? What the **** happened to "customer service?" I'm not an accountant, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't have oodles of hours to sift through this crap on my own.
Has anyone here ever done this before, and know the proper channels to go through so I don't wind up getting either scammed or lost in bureaucratic stupidity?
I tried calling the college student aid office, and they didn't know how to do anything. They told me to look at the government site.
The first site I went to (which went deliberately out of its way to make itself look like a legitimate government site) swore up and down that they could get my payment down to $29.99 a month, with forgiveness of any unpayed loans in 20 years or less... They just want a "one time payment" of $300.00 first. I googled around, and the general consensus seems to be that they're pretty damn shady, and probably a scam.
So, I decided to be a bit more careful and found the actual government website instead. What did I find there? Hordes and hordes of technical information and jargon I neither understand nor give a damn about, with no telephone number to call anywhere in sight. I finally had to google "What is the number for federal student aid" just to find the damn thing.
Then, the best I was able to get was a stupid automated line which couldn't seem to understand a word I was saying. After like my fourth time shouting "I SAID, 'MORE OPTIONS,' YOU PIECE OF ****!!!" it eventually kicked me back to a human operator.
What did I find there?
Oh, yeah. She was some early twenties mouth-breather who didn't sound like she had ever finished High School, who didn't know a damn thing about student loan consolidation or how to get me in touch with someone who does. She basically just spent 10 minutes mumblingly reading through the information on the website, and telling me to go apply for myself.
Ummm... Really? What the **** happened to "customer service?" I'm not an accountant, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't have oodles of hours to sift through this crap on my own.
Has anyone here ever done this before, and know the proper channels to go through so I don't wind up getting either scammed or lost in bureaucratic stupidity?
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