By Joseph Reinke, CFA, CEO of FitBUX
$95,000-$20,000 = $0 (?!)
This call that I just had with a FitBUX Member (we’ll call him Jim) and his loan servicer (we won’t name the loan servicer for legal reasons but let’s call them Ted Loan Servicing or Ted Loans for short) is by far the worst situation we’ve seen at FitBUX since launching our Student Loan Tracking Solution.
About 7 months ago, Jim decided to refinance $20,000 with one of our student loan refinance partners. Jim had a total of $95,000 in Federal student loans being serviced by Ted Loan Servicing.
Everything went smoothly and our refinance partner had everything done in seven business days.
Two weeks later is when the nightmare happened. Jim got a notice from Ted Loans saying, “Congratulations for repaying your loans.”
Jim logged into his account at Ted Loan Servicing and to his amazement, THE FULL $95,000 WAS PAID OFF!
He thought that the refinance lender made a mistake and he accidentally refinanced the full amount so he checked the refinance paperwork.
60 to 90 days to fix their error?
Nope, everything was correct. So he called his FitBUX Coach and since Jim was signed up with FitBUX’s Student Loan Tracking Solution, he and his FitBUX Coach called Ted Loans servicing together.
As a side note, Jim’s FitBUX Coach was “looking forward” to that call because Ted Loans tends to mess up quite a bit. In fact, we at FitBUX have them on speed dial…
Back to the story… When we called in to see what the deal was, the customer service rep from Ted Loans informed us that the refinance amount of $20,000 was correct and that the “$0 balance” was, surprise, “incorrect”.
It was a mistake by Ted Loans and it would take 60 – 90 days to fix. In the meantime, Jim wouldn’t have to make payments because there was, literally “no loans to make a payment to” in Ted Loans’ system.
So 90 days go by and Jim gets an email saying the mistake was corrected. He logged into his Ted Loans account…you guessed it…it still showed a $0 balance.
So he and his FitBUX Coach called Ted Loans. Not only had they not started the paperwork to correct the mistake, Ted Loans had also sent back $1,600 to the company that refinanced his $20,000 worth of loans. We have no idea why would they send back $1,600 but now that had to be corrected as well.
Another 60-90 days to fix another error and…I have to pay for it?!?
The Ted Loans rep then informed Jim it would take another 60 – 90 days to properly file the paperwork to correct their latest mistake.
AND THE WORST PART is that the Ted Loans rep informed Jim that he’d be responsible for all the interest that wasn’t paid in the time period that they were correcting THEIR mistakes, i.e. he would be responsible for the interest it the period they said he didn’t have to make a payment.
At this point, this would add up to over $2,000. This is still ongoing and we will fight like hell because Jim is definitely not paying for their mistake.
Thus far, over 60% of FitBUX Members that have signed up for Student Loan Tracking Solution have had a mistake made by their student loan servicer…
If you want to make sure your loan servicer is applying your money correctly and want FitBUX on your side, simply build your profile, schedule a free call to discuss your student loan strategy along with next steps to make sure you don’t become the next “Jim”.
Learn more here: FitBUX Student Loan Tracking Solution.
About FitBUX, Inc.
If you are interested in developing a student loan repayment plan that is customized to you, you can visit www.fitbux.com and become a member today for free.
