I throw down the gauntlet.

I wasted yet another perfectly good afternoon arguing with low-level functionary douchebags at some call center that Sallie Mae has outsourced their customer support to.

A little back story - ever since my wife graduated with her master's degree, we have been unable to convince Sallie Mae to accept a reasonable monthly payment.

She originally took out somewhere in the neighborhood of $30K for her undergraduate degree, fortunately she got a teaching assistance-ship which not only paid for her classes, but also gave her a paycheck for teaching.

These loans were taken out through some company 'edsouth' or 'edamerica' or some such - and through some kind of merger, takeover, buyout or what have you ended up in the cold clutches of the shit-for-brain fuckface cocksuckers at Sallie Mae (to put it mildly).

Once she graduated, she had a few months before she was supposed to start making payments - however when the first bill arrived, it was considerably more than we were able to make.

Interestingly enough - I was able to come to an agreement with them several years previously regarding my student loans, and was able to set up a 'graduated payment plan' - which wasn't necessarily what I wanted, but at least made the minimum payments reasonable - and more importantly, set the amount to a minimum rather than to take some fuckstick call-center agents advice and 'pay what I could' and end up buried in late fees/partial payment fees/nonpayment fees, etc.

Amusingly - I came to that agreement while making roughly three times as much as my wife does now. Part of the problem seems to stem from the fact that we file a joint tax return (which is patently retarded).

Anyway - after years of attempting to square things away with various incompetents - we were repeatedly led down the primrose path of deferring payment, to the point where she no longer has any deferment left (should she get sick, lose her job, etc. - and actually NEED it).

These agents simply pushed our problem further and further down the road, and now after a couple of years of gaining interest (we weren't about to make 'interest only' payments if they were just going to get gobbled up by late fees, etc. due to the inability to arrange an acceptable minimum payment) they total over $45K.

Various other attempts made by my wife to convince Sallie Mae that we were willing, and able to make a reasonable payment were ignored - and she was even told that the only way to get things squared away was to give them access to her bank account in order to make automatic payments (which, of course, is unacceptable).

In case anyone is actually reading this - our financial situation is actually fairly decent. We make a point of paying all of our bills - on time.

This has been the one sticking point - and is about to blow wide open.

After I finally got involved, we were able to get her account current (albeit $17K in interest of top of the loans) and were told that she needed to fill out a form in order to get a lower payment arranged based on income (last year she only brought in $15K or so teaching part time).

The problem with this was, they already knew it would 1) take more than a month to process, 2) would be turned down because by that point the account would no longer be current, and 3) be turned down anyway due to our combined income on our taxes.

If I had that agent back on the phone - they would get to listen to a string of curse words that would make George Carlin blush.

So - now we've got a response telling us that the request for an income based payment arrangement was turned down, and a bill claiming we are two (or three) payments behind.

I about had a freaking aneurism that night.

Of course, my immediate reaction was to contact Sallie Mae (and start breaking some foot off in ass). Unfortunately (for me) their stupid fucking call centers were shut down for a like a week or so (pushing it down the road more).

I finally decided that tonight was the night to kick shit into overdrive.

The first agent was the typical useless moron 'you can't get an income based payment plan while your account has a due balance'

Well no shit sherlock - it was current when the last shithead told us to fucking fill out the form that they KNEW WOULD BE TURNED DOWN.

Let there be no mistake - these fucktards exist only to fill quotas of how many calls they can 'handle' (read: blow off) an hour.

I spent a few minutes talking like a psycho to her until asking the $45,000 question - 'are you in any kind of position to actually make decisions?'

Of course 'no'.

I got transferred to a 'supervisor' - bullshit, it was just another agent.

I repeated everything, went nuts on them for a few minutes, and got another 'supervisor'.

This guy actually sounded like he spoke english as a first language (no offense, because I usually don't mind Indian customer support - I can understand them well enough to handle most problems - but in this particular case, I needed someone who was going to listen to what I had to say, and shut the fuck up with the rote responses 'you must pay $900 in order to submit the form again, have it be turned down again, and now be even further in the hole'

I think they may have tried to transfer me to their 'trouble guy' who wouldn't be intimidated by a certified psychopath.

That shit lasted about ten seconds - and I let him have it (at least the time I wasted tonight was cathartic).

Basically - a fucking company that services federal student loans (as a predatory lender - that preys on the young) - and is ALSO A COLLECTIONS AGENCY is going to have a rather obvious CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

They have a vested interest in keeping people in debt indefinitely - and make massive amounts of revenue from the exorbitant fees that they excise from people who they refuse to make acceptable arrangements from.

Spend a few minutes online, and you will find that people have been attempting to sue this company (probably to very little effect) and there are a million stories about someone with $20K in student loans paying $17-18K and somehow still ending up with $25K+ in debt.

It's a vicious fucking cycle - a snowballing effect - and one that is about to get kicked square in the fucking balls.

I'm sure other people have gone up against them - and most of them have probably failed.

The ones who have attempted to blow me off have underestimated one thing. I am willing to scour the earth for any motherfucker who takes advantage of my wife, which I feel they have done, on repeated occasions.

At any rate - the ball is in their court now. I reached the highest level of customer 'support' that they had, and am now expecting a call in the next 24 hours from a 'manager' who, no doubt, will reiterate the same bullshit line that the agents did this afternoon.

I am half tempted to scream 'WE ARE SPARTA!!!!!' right at the beginning of the call just to let them know that they are dealing with one crazy-ass unhinged son of a bitch.

It's going to be an interesting call - and is either going to end with me going another rung up the shithead ladder, or me getting exactly what the fuck I want. Either way, it's almost guaranteed that at some time in the call, it will be necessary for me to snap, and remind them that I don't appreciate them having fucked my wife over repeatedly.

Fortuantely - in the meantime, I have found a possible avenue with Direct Loans to take over my wifes loans (due to her being a teacher at a community college) setting up a reasonable payment, and (though not likely due to her part time status) possibly having the remainder of her loans dissapear after she makes her 120th payment.

I am going to persue that - but first get Sallie Mae under control, even if it means breaking my foot of in the ass of every single person in their half-assed orginization, starting with the janitor, and working my way up to top.

Once I finally get the payment agreement, then I am going to get to work dialing the loans back to their original amounts, or at least closer.

I can show how almost all of the interest that has accrued on the account is 100% the fault of Sallie Mae's incompetent staff blowing my wife off, lying to her, and specifically setting her up for spectacular failure.

I am going to BURN these motherfuckers - hard.

And when I get done with this shit, hopefully moving my wifes loans away, (and with any luck, figuring out a way to move mine away as well), then I am not going to stop.

My brother-in-law is going to get my help next. They are trying to pull the exact same shit with him that they pulled with my wife (his sister).

He has been making partial payments - and I can guarantee that they have him set up to be in debt until he dies.

Fuck that, and fuck them.

Period.

(To be cont.)

The End Of Sallie Mae

It is far past time.

Sallie Mae is going down.

Their predatory lending practices, and lack of concern for the people who they continue to drive further and further into a spiraling hole of debt are about to come to a screeching halt.

It's time for some civil disobedience - DO NOT PAY ONE RED CENT TO SALLIE MAE.

Note - I have been paying my student loans for years. It was only when I attempted to set up a reasonable payment plan for my wife's student loans that I came to the conclusion that something needed to be done. Immediately.

I will not relent, and I will not rest, until Sallie Mae has been brought to it's knees, and the Federal Government takes over the loan - rolls them back to the original amounts of the loans, and starts accepting repayment at 1% interest.

This is a call to action - contact me for more information.

Get angry - and get involved. Contact representatives at local, county, state, and federal levels to let them know that the predatory lending practices and guarantees made that you will never be free of your student loan debt are NOT ACCEPTABLE.

It's time to educate ourselves - and stand up for our rights.