GREAT LAKES
Consumer Complaints
There are over 1568 complaints on file for GREAT LAKES. Dated between 2019-12-12 and 2012-03-26.
Complaints Page 38
2017-06-10
Ehrhardt, SC
Incorrect information on your report
Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports: Credit reporting
Account status incorrect
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-06-09
Alpharetta, GA
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Don't agree with the fees charged
Company Response: Closed with explanation
2017-06-09
North Hollywood, CA
Attempts to collect debt not owed
Debt collection: Private student loan debt
Debt is not yours
Complaint: This company is reporting a debt that is not verified. They have failed to provide information showing signature and have violated FDCPA LAW. We are filing a Lawsuit as well unless the accounts are removed.
XXXX Account Number XXXX Account Type Installment Loan Terms Unknown Date Opened XX/XX/XXXX Account Status Closed Payment Status Unknown Payment Status Details Account transferred to another office Status Updated XX/XX/XXXX Balance - Balance Updated - Credit Limit - Past Due Amount - High Balance - Monthly Payment - Balloon Payment - Contact Phone BYMAILONLY Contact Address XXXX XXXX XXXX , XXXX , WI XXXX Ownership Individual Original Creditor - Company Sold-to - Original Amount {$28000.00} XXXX Account Number XXXX Account Type Installment Loan Terms Unknown Date Opened XX/XX/XXXX Account Status Closed Payment Status Unknown Payment Status Details Account transferred to another office Status Updated XX/XX/XXXX Balance - Balance Updated - Credit Limit - Past Due Amount - High Balance - Monthly Payment - Balloon Payment - Contact Phone BYMAILONLY Contact Address XXXX XXXX XXXX , XXXX , WI XXXX Ownership Individual Original Creditor - Company Sold-to - Original Amount {$6700.00} Comments XXXX Account Number XXXX Account Type Installment Loan Terms Unknown Date Opened XX/XX/XXXX Account Status Closed Payment Status Unknown Payment Status Details Account transferred to another office Status Updated XX/XX/XXXX Balance - Balance Updated - Credit Limit - Past Due Amount - High Balance - Monthly Payment - Balloon Payment - Contact Phone BYMAILONLY Contact Address XXXX XXXX XXXX , XXXX , WI XXXX Ownership Individual Original Creditor - Company Sold-to - Original Amount {$7800.00} Comments -
Company Response: Closed with explanation
2017-06-09
Lexington, KY
Written notification about debt
Debt collection: I do not know
Didn't receive enough information to verify debt
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-06-07
ME
Incorrect information on your report
Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports: Credit reporting
Account status incorrect
Complaint: I fell behind in student loans payments, however I consolidated them and have been current ever sense. They have my account marked a negative when it 's not. False information
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-06-06
Salem, OR
Incorrect information on your report
Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports: Credit reporting
Account status incorrect
Company Response: Closed with explanation
2017-06-06
NJ
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Trouble with how payments are being handled
Complaint: I was shocked when I reviewed my credit report and found several late payments on my student loans with the dates below : 90 days past due as of XXXX XXXX 60 days past due as of XXXX XXXX , XXXX XXXX 30 days past due as of XXXX XXXX , XXXX XXXX I am not sure how this happened, I believe that I had made my payments to you when I received my statements. My only thought is that this was supposed to be in deferment and it did not get processed correctly or the payments I sent in were not registered.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-06-04
Lewisville, TX
Incorrect information on your report
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Account status incorrect
Complaint: My U.S. Department of Education account ( acct # XXXX XXXX reports late payments in XXXX which I dispute and disagree with. The student loans were in deferment after I graduated as I was unable to find full-time work at the income level i was accustomed to before the recession in XXXX . This prompted me to go back to school and obtain an XXXX in the hopes it would make me more marketable and increase my earning potential, however the economy still had not fully recovered. In XXXX I with not other choice I filed for Chapter XXXX bankruptcy which alleviated a lot of debt and also enabled me to relocate to XXXX , TX for a new job and more income in XXXX . I moved XXXX XXXX to XXXX and then again in XXXX once I was settled in TX. During this time my student loans were in deferment as I was not financially able to make the full payments. However in the time period between XXXX and XXXX the deferment ended and payments started, however I had not received any documentation informing me of this. Typically In the past I was notified the deferment was coming to an end and I would refile it, however this time I did not. It was not until XXXX or XXXX of XXXX I was finally called by the loan servicer and informed my account was delinquent and approaching charge off status. I told them the account was in deferment and that should n't be an issue, the person on the phone then said I see that tried to put the account back into deferment status, however now the balance needed to be current to do so. I asked how this happened and I could not get an answer, low and behold they did n't have my new contact information on hand even though I had filed with the postal service and informed my creditors. I asked why they never called me to notify me I could not get an answer. I then asked if this was reporting on my credit and affecting my credit, again I got the run around and could not get a straight answer other than we do not know what the bureaus report. How is that possible you 're the ones telling them what to report. Still no answer from the operator on the phone. I asked for confirmation on the credit reporting since this would incorrectly and negatively affect my credit rating. Finally, I was informed that the late payments would be reported but it was still not a direct answer the operator just stated that they were collecting the debt but that the original creditor would report the lates and they were not responsible for that. Again, I need to ask how you are not responsible for the error, the account is still with the original creditor, it has never been sold or changed. I offered to pull money from my XXXX and pay the account in-full if they would provide me a letter stating the account was never late and it was an error on their part so I could have the credit report corrected. I was informed they could not do that. In the end I had to make payment arrangements now that the account was in repayment status and I could not defer any payments or work out a payment arrangement at all until the account was current. Over the next few months I made double and triple payments to bring the account current. By the end of this time my new employment was stable and income was more inline with previous years so I have set the account up on a monthly autopayment. I would however still like the late payments to be removed, since the creditor failed to properly inform me the account entered into repayment status and never sent statements, letters or phone calls for almost XXXX months. I find this troublesome and disheartening that my credit can be impacted for their error. This has caused me to be declined for loans, and credit since this happened. All I would like is for the creditor to either correct the payment history with the credit agencies ( XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ) or just to send me a letter on their stating this was an error on their end and the account was never late and then I will send that to each agency to be updated and corrected.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-06-03
KY
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Received bad information about your loan
Complaint: I had my student loans through Great Lakes Student Loan Servicing. Starting in XXXX I began making loan payments. I am a XXXX and I contacted them about options. They told me about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and how I needed to get into the Income Based Repayment plan. I applied and started in XXXX in the program. For XXXX it gave me a payment of {$0.00} which would count toward the 120 payments needed. XXXX it was {$56.00} per month. XXXX it was {$250.00} per month. XXXX it was {$220.00} per month. And in XXXX it was {$130.00} per month. In XXXX I submitted paperwork to verify my employment which is needed to eventually qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. At that point I received notification from Great Lakes that my payments would not count because my student loans needed to be consolidated through XXXX. I have since switched my loans over but I have to restart the 120 payments. This is going to delay my finishing my loans by 5 years due to XXXX not counting. Great Lakes never informed me that the loans needed to be converted to XXXX and this will continue to cost me substantial money.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-06-01
Tampa, FL
Struggling to repay your loan
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Problem lowering your monthly payments
Complaint: For reference, this complaint involves all of my federal loans serviced through Great Lakes, and my attempts to renew my Income Based Repayment Plan. This began back around XXXX of XXXX, when I first tried to do my annual IBR renewal. For some reason, they said my renewal application could n't be processed online, and I had to mail in my application, which I did. After that, I waited weeks for my paperwork to be processed, but continued to receive notices that I needed to provide said paperwork. As my first payment date post-IBR approached with no word on the renewal, I called them around the end of XXXX or beginning of XXXX. They said they had received my paperwork, but it was n't due to be processed until after the first post-IBR due date in early XXXX, and offered a 1-month forbearance so I would n't become delinquent ( I could n't afford a non-IBR payment ). I agreed to this. Fast-forward a few weeks, and I still had n't heard anything about my paperwork being processed, and was still receiving e-mails saying I needed to provide more paperwork. So I give them a call back in late XXXX, and they tell me that they HAVE processed my paperwork, and it had been determined I would have a lower monthly payment on Pay as You Earn than IBR, and I had marked that I wanted the lowest payment possible, but before they could switch me over I had to pay a {$5.00} fee. ( NB : I had NEVER received this information in any e-mail correspondence, it was completely news to me! ) I was running really tight on money till my next paycheck, so I said I would call back closer to my first due date in XXXX to switch onto that plan. So, I call back right around when the XXXX payment is due, and pay the {$5.00} fee to switch onto Pay as You Earn. However, they said it would n't be processed fast enough to lower my XXXX payment so it was back to an income-driven level, and suggested yet again I put in for a temporary forbearance. I agreed to this, again, and said I would forbear until starting repayments on the Pay as You Earn in XXXX. Which brings us up finally to now. I check my total due in XXXX last week, and four things seem to be very wrong still with my account : 1 ) My total monthly payment is {$250.00}, which is much higher than I expected. My understanding has been that Pay as You Earn is calculated as 10 % of your discretionary income. My AGI for XXXX was only XXXX, and working the same jobs as last year with a slight increase in hours over the year, I expect my AGI to be somewhere around XXXX for XXXX. So somehow my discretionary income, according to Great Lakes, is either higher than my AGI will be, or at the very least calculated to be my total income! And needless to say, my gross income is not discretionary in total. ( And to be clear : I sent in current pay stubs for both my jobs with my renewal application. ) 2 ) The {$5.00} fee they had me pay to switch programs is not noted in the online documentation I have as a fee in any way. Instead, it shows up as just a {$5.00} payment toward a Direct Stafford loan. This seems to be at odds with what was described over the phone.
3 ) I still have a link on their web site under the " Things To Do Now '' heading labelled " View the status of your income-driven repayment application '' with what appears to be some sort of alert symbol. When I click on this link, I still see a message that says " We 've encountered an error processing your income-driven repayment application. We 'll contact you regarding next steps. Please make sure your contact information is correct. '' This is the same message I have seen on the site throughout this entire process, and whenever I 've called about it, the representatives I 've spoken to all claim that there actually is n't an error with my account. And yet, here we are. 4 ) My loans, which are all supposed to be on the same PAYE plan, have different due dates. XXXX of them are due XXXX XXXX, and XXXX are due XXXX XXXX.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-05-31
WI
Struggling to repay your loan
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Can't get other flexible options for repaying your loan
Complaint: I 've made almost {$11000.00} in payments since consolidating my loans in XX/XX/XXXX, but my principal balance has n't been reduced. Mysteriously, all of my monthly payments were applied to interest over the last 17 months until last month, when just {$35.00} was applied to principal. <P/>My payment amount has remained the same ; my interest rate has remained the same. Nothing has changed since I began repayments on my loan in XX/XX/XXXX, except having consolidated my loans in XX/XX/XXXX. <P/>I 've gotten no response from Great Lakes Higher Education Corp. in Wisconsin, my student loan servicer, as to why no portion of my payments reduced the principal balance of my loan. I have an extended graduated repayment plan, but a simple amortization schedule calculation indicates my monthly interest payment should have been at most {$30.00} less than my monthly payment amount. This means the servicer has failed to apply principal portions of my payment for all but the last month 's payment. I calculate just more than {$580.00} in principal that has been applied instead to interest, just on my consolidated loan.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-05-31
Houston, TX
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Received bad information about your loan
Company Response: Closed with explanation
2017-05-29
Sacramento, CA
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Problem with customer service
Complaint: I reported to Great Lakes Borrowers Services, multiple times that I fraudulently received my federal financial aid, which is a felony. I documented the issues, wrote & called, called back, emailed, asked the information be added to my file, requested that they act on the information. They have done nothing to date to assist me for almost two years.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-05-28
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Need information about your loan balance or loan terms
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-05-25
Trenton, NJ
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Trouble with how payments are being handled
Complaint: I have tried working out payments with the loan servicing company. However, due to job losses I fell behind few payments & could n't keep up. This year after I filed my tax return, I was shocked to find out that IRS has applied the entire refund amount ( {$2000.00} ) to a past obligation. When I contacted IRS ' Bure au of Fiscal Services ( BFS ) to find out the reason, they gave me the phone number for the loan servicing company to contact. This is definitely not fair, as I 've worked with them to make payments. As a private, for-profit company, they should not have the right to withdraw money owed to me by a federal government agency.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-05-24
Oak Grove, MO
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Don't agree with the fees charged
Company Response: Closed with explanation
2017-05-24
Rumpus Ridge, SD
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Need information about your loan balance or loan terms
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-05-24
Kansas City, MO
Struggling to repay your loan
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Can't get other flexible options for repaying your loan
Complaint: Like many Americans, my wife and I have been paying student loan debt for the last 17 years. During the consolidation process in the XXXX 's our loans got locked in with 7.8 % interest rate, even though some of the loans had lower interest rates we figured it would be easier to manage the loans. After the consolidation process-I was paying between $ 500-600 dollars a month on my student loan but because of the 7.8 % interest rate and several forbearance periods on the loans, the initial principal balance kept growing out of control. Besides the interest growing out of control it was also hard to keep track of who was servicing the loans. The loan servicers kept changing for both my wife and I, from XXXX XXXX to XXXX XXXX to XXXX to Great Lakes, etc. we were not able to keep track of the payments we had made and the manner the loan servicer was applying for our payments. Each time the loan was sold or taken over by another servicer, they only showed the amounts from the time they received the loans and did not easily include past loan info from the other servic er ( s ). At one point a l ump sum payment in the amount of {$5000.00}, to my wives loan was completely applied just to interest and we saw no real drop in the amount owed. My wife and I suffered a tremendous loss during the financial crises of XXXX . Our savings and business were practically demolished. It was at this point, I reached out to my loan servicer and asked if I could negotiate a lower interest rate for the student loans, but I was denied. I was told that since we had consolidated a few years earlier, we could not reconsolidate and there were no other plans or income repayment opportunities. My only recourse was forbearance or deferment. I realize there are a number of income repayment plans now available and that works for new student loan borrowers, but it does n't do any good for older student loan borrowers that got trapped during the financial crises. Most our loans are loaded with interest and without the ability to renegotiate. Why is it that most banks got close to 0 % interest loans to pay down their debt during the financial crises of XXXX - XXXX , and y et US Citizens with student loan debt were not able to get refinancing and debt relief for whatever reason and were only provided with options that increased our debt load, and is keeping us tethered to unreasonable interest rates, unreasonable length of time for paying said debt and directly affecting our ability to purchase a home or property.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-05-23
Syracuse, NY
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Don't agree with the fees charged
Company Response: Closed with explanation
2017-05-22
Nazareth, PA
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Received bad information about your loan
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-05-18
Tucson, AZ
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Trouble with how payments are being handled
Complaint: Due to b eing honorably discharged from the XXXX XXXX , I was no longer eligible for reduced rates in accordance with Servicemember 's Civil Relief Act. This triggered a new schedule with Great Lakes. According to their policy they chose not to deduct money from my account for a month and changed my payment to the minimum without my permission. Their response to why this happened was because I was not required to make a payment that month and they did not want an unexpected amount to leave my account due to the change in interest. They continued to charge me interest for this " unrequired '' monthly payment and my auto pay is set at a dollar amount. This policy seems purposefully designed to disadvantage the consumer.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-05-18
Burbank, CA
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Received bad information about your loan
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-05-18
S Salt Lake, UT
Struggling to repay your loan
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Problem lowering your monthly payments
Complaint: I have sent the application to apply f or Income Based Repayment 5 times. Every time I wait a few days and call to check if they have it ( when it w as mailed - I waited a week ). I faxed a paper copy XXXX XXXX to XXXX . I called on XXXX XXXX - they said they had no record of my fax and to try the online application. I submitted my online application on XXXX XXXX at studentloans.gov. I called XXXX XXXX and they told me they could not see any record of me accessing the site - they asked me to mail it. I mailed a copy on XXXX XXXX priority mail. I messaged them on XXXX XXXX and they again told me they had no records. I finally emailed them a copy of the application this morning and got a response telling me that they finally can confirm I accessed studentloans.gov but that I had not submitted the supporting documentation ( which was included in the email ). I have now sent another email with the PDF application and supporting documentation but my deferment period is ending XXXX XXXX XXXX . I need someone to help me make my servicer process my application and documentation that I have submitted multiple times through the last month.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-05-18
Mesa, AZ
Struggling to repay your loan
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Can't get other flexible options for repaying your loan
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation
2017-05-17
Arlington, VA
Dealing with your lender or servicer
Student loan: Federal student loan servicing
Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law Closed with explanation