This new MyEdAccount.com crap.

[kane_magus]

On October 11, 2011, I mailed out an envelope to the Federal Direct Loans people, containing all of the forms necessary to make a change to the repayment plan on my consolidation loan. As of today, November 14, 2011, I have not yet received any sort of response to this at all.

On October 31, 2011, I sent them an email via their new website to which they have switched. As of today, November 14, 2011, I have not yet received any sort of response to this at all.

On November 9, 2011, I sent them another email, following up on the previous one, a response to which I never received, which was a follow up to the snail mail I had sent them, a response to which I never received. As of today, November 14, 2011, I have not yet received any sort of response to this at all.

Well, today, I finally decided to stop screwing around with email and just call them on the telephone directly. I called them. All I got was a recorded message saying, essentially, "Because we're still in the process of switching over to the new website, we're getting a lot of calls. As such, we're not going to actually take your call now but just play this lame recorded message. You should totally go try out our spiffy new website that hardly works at all."

So now, today, in light of the above, I have sent them a third email, which was essentially a slightly less angry sounding version of the above LJ post. At this point, I honestly don't expect to receive any sort of response to this one at all, either.

What a serious load of enraging crap.

Comments

[sailorzeo.livejournal.com]

I'll agree that their website is a PITA. Every time I try to log in, I have to answer their security questions, and it's still a 50/50 chance that I'll get locked out anyway! I mean, seriously, it's like they don't really want me to pay back my loans. :-P

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

The first day that I created an account on the new site, it locked me out when I tried to log in immediately after. It kept telling me that I had used an incorrect password (that I had just created) or that I had failed to correctly answer the security question (which I had also just set up and which it never even asked me at the time). So I sent them yet another email that they also never responded to, separate from and prior to the ones I mentioned above. Luckily for me, I was able to try it again the next day, and it gave me the security question that time and let me in. So, yeah, I haven't been locked out since then, and I've been able to make sure that my bank auto-draft was still set up, but that's all I've been able to do with the site so far.

Another thing is that all emails I get from them now (which since the switchover to the new site have only been the "Thank you for sending us your email inquiry. This email is an automatic acknowledgement to let you know that we have received your email blah blah blah" messages and nothing more) are automatically dumped into Comcast's spam folder on arrival. I'm pretty sure that this wasn't the case before.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm not sure if it's the case that they're so swamped with emails that they're just not able to answer them, or if it's the case that the email system on the new site simply doesn't work at all. I mean, I am getting the auto-response emails, but those seem to be coming from the old site still, same as before the switchover. The only difference is that the auto-messages acknowledges that they are "experiencing greater than normal volumes" and that they "apologize for any inconvenience" or whatever. Either way, the result is the same on my end: I'm not getting through to anybody. It was one of the things I had intended to ask them about when I tried to call them yesterday, but since I wasn't able to get a call through either... who knows?

[sailorzeo.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...solution*! Skip a payment, and they'll call YOU twelve times a day!



*not a real solution

Nelnet (Government Contractor) incompetence

[siestaguy.livejournal.com]

It appears that the Department of Education outsourced servicing to NelNet (formerly known as Unipac). I figured that out after deciding to cancel my auto-debit because I fear there is a very good chance they will screw me over by debiting an amount greater than my regular monthly payment. After cancelling, the resulting screen had a title of "Nelnet.com - Manage My Account". I confirmed that our problems are indeed being caused by NelNet's incompetence because 1) they are the owner of the SSL certificate for MyEdAccount.com 2) MyEdAccount.com is hosted on servers having an IP address that has been assigned to Unipac (NelNet's former name) and 3) the reason why it's a .com instead of a .gov is because NelNet is not eligible to have a .gov domain because it is not a government entity.

NelNet is profiting from our misery: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nelnet-reports-third-quarter-2011-results-133480633.html

I will be forgoing the .25 interest discount, but actually, that is inconsequential because I am 3 years into the 10 years required for Public Service Student Loan Forgiveness. After 10 years (assuming NelNet doesn't bungle their records of my 120 monthly payments), the remaining balance is forgiven and not subject to income tax.