Anyone have student loans with Great Lakes?

[kylemoney]

Besides that they suck (that can be for another thread) I log in everyday to track my daily interest. This morning I log in and I get a message "There are no records associated with you on our system"

Anyone else getting this? They are beyond horrible but my interest rate isn't worth refi'ing and their site is decently easy to use.

[CYANiDE]

Right now, it looks like the site is having some issues, I get the same message.

No Loan Information Found
At this time, there's no loan information associated with you on our system.

Visit our Knowledge Center for helpful information about student loans.
Not a student loan customer? Visit our corporate home.

[dignam]

I did as of last year then consolidated with Nelnet.  I remember not really liking the GL site...

[kylemoney]

Cool, it's not just me. I track it daily because I have read all the negative reports about them.

Last year I logged in and my balance jumped 3x what I owed overnight. It was fixed and accrued interest reversed and they never could explain why that happened ha.

[J Boogie]

My wife's student loans are with them.

Maybe Anonymous pulled a Fight Club Ending style move and destroyed their records!



Unrelated, but I heard you can pay off chunks with a credit card.  Is that still the case?

[StashthatCash]

I moved all my loans from Great Lakes to Nelnet.  Great Lakes doesn't let you pay toward particular groups of loans very easily.  Last I checked though you could still use credit cards to make payments which was nice.

[druth]

I moved all my loans from Great Lakes to Nelnet.  Great Lakes doesn't let you pay toward particular groups of loans very easily.  Last I checked though you could still use credit cards to make payments which was nice.

They added the feature to pay specific loans somewhat recently, but I don't think I have ever been able to pay with a card.  (just checked because you got me excited)

[therethere]

I had Great Lakes for 10 years and have never had them screw up on autopay, extra electronic payments, or accrued interest calculations. Of all the loan companies I had they were the best at being up to date. Checking the interest daily may be overkill.

I've heard you have to call to pay by credit card. There is a thread about it somewhere. I never got to take advantage of it unfortunately because I just refinanced to Earnest.

[Ricksun]

No issues with my loan showing up this morning, also never had an issue with payments, interest, etc, but I don't check daily...  Had 2 loans with them at one point; the first was 5.25% consolidation I paid off.  I've got a 3.1% rate that I'm just paying the minimum on until it goes away. 

Ricksun

[ringer707]

Ha, glad I'm not the only one who checks their interest daily...

[FrugalShrew]

This may not be your situation, but I got a similar message when my loan was transferred from Direct Loans to Great Lakes.

One day I logged onto Direct Loans to see that I no longer had a loan with them. Next I received an email from Great Lakes saying "start sending us your money" (which was super shady). Finally about 2 weeks later I finally received an email from Direct Loan stating that my loan had been transferred to Great Lakes.

It was not a well-orchestrated process.

[TheAnonOne]

Most students are bitter about their loans so ALL student loan companies have the WORST reputation and reviews.

I had NELNET, GL, and WF. None of them were bad for any reason other than I had to pay them. They were paid off years ago, and it feels great!

[therethere]

Most students are bitter about their loans so ALL student loan companies have the WORST reputation and reviews.

I had NELNET, GL, and WF. None of them were bad for any reason other than I had to pay them. They were paid off years ago, and it feels great!

I think you are being overly simplistic. There are some companies that screw up more than others by making their payment system confusing. For example,  purposely not putting options to pay a certain loan or hiding this option within the website or with obscure language. It's not all just people being bitter. I had multiple loans with Citibank (or it could have been Sallie Mae it switched multiple times) and one was private at 9%. I had to figure out by trial and error a reliable way to apply my extra payments to the private loan. Trial and error! I ended up having to have my bank mail physical checks with an exact accounting code (that wasn't listed on the website or statements) to get it to apply correctly. At the time I was sending in extra payments multiple times a week to knock down the balance and save interest. I definitely watched that website everyday for posting payments to make sure they were applied correctly.

[NoStacheOhio]

Most students are bitter about their loans so ALL student loan companies have the WORST reputation and reviews.

I had NELNET, GL, and WF. None of them were bad for any reason other than I had to pay them. They were paid off years ago, and it feels great!

FWIW, I'm bitter about my loans and I only hate one of the servicing companies.

I had a perfectly fine experience with Great Lakes, they were helpful when I called and processed paperwork reasonably quickly.

Consolidated and got put with FedLoan, which has been mostly fine.

My wife was with Sallie Mae, consolidated and got put back with Sallie Mae, which is now Navient. They've been horrible for years. Paperwork takes forever, then they usually do it wrong. I've given up trying to get them to fix it because it's "close enough." Her IBR payments are triple what mine are for a similar loan balance (and we file MFJ). She was on administrative forbearance for almost a year while we argued with them over IBR. They finally came back with a payment that was in the ballpark, and then REPAYE came along, which took another six months to process. Now we're back to the wrong payment amount song and dance. It irritates me to no end, because there's basically no recourse and the companies can do whatever the hell they want. Then they try to bully you into going along with it when you start to point out the myriad ways they can't math.

[FrugalShrew]

Yeah, I also only had issues with one servicer. I never had any problems with Direct Loan.

However, in addition to handling the transition poorly, I had other problems with Great Lakes. When I would send payment amounts over my monthly payment, as a servicer for federal loans by federal law they are supposed to apply extra payments to your highest interest loans. Of course they were not doing that for me. When I called about it, they said, "oh, you have two separate accounts, so we split the extra payment between the accounts." Umm, no, I only have one account number. "Yeah, but there are two accounts within the account." How can I distinguish between the subaccounts so that my payment only goes to the account with the highest interest loans? "Oh, just write the name of the loan type on your check." That doesn't sound like two separate accounts to me . . .

It took me three representatives to get to somebody who would assign numbers to the subaccounts. Even so, she still recommended sending separate checks: 1 for my monthly payment, which would go towards both subaccounts, and 1 for any extra, on which I wrote the subaccount number for the one I wanted my payment to go towards.

All this runaround, just to get them to do what they were legally required to do anyway.

[NoStacheOhio]

All this runaround, just to get them to do what they were legally required to do anyway.

It's sort of amazing when you literally say "you're violating federal law," and it just bounces right off.

[dignam]

Most students are bitter about their loans so ALL student loan companies have the WORST reputation and reviews.

I had NELNET, GL, and WF. None of them were bad for any reason other than I had to pay them. They were paid off years ago, and it feels great!

Yeah this is a bit of a generalization here.  I'm a web developer so I feel I have some standing when I say their website (at least in the last few years) was sub par.  Hell, you don't need to be a developer to notice how difficult it was to obtain certain info.  Nelnet's site is superior and easier to navigate.

[TheAnonOne]

Most students are bitter about their loans so ALL student loan companies have the WORST reputation and reviews.

I had NELNET, GL, and WF. None of them were bad for any reason other than I had to pay them. They were paid off years ago, and it feels great!

Yeah this is a bit of a generalization here.  I'm a web developer so I feel I have some standing when I say their website (at least in the last few years) was sub par.  Hell, you don't need to be a developer to notice how difficult it was to obtain certain info.  Nelnet's site is superior and easier to navigate.

No doubt the website could use some work. I just think that reviews for SL companies are probably unfairly biasedly low.