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I was curious to know if anyone has experience in dealing with this particular process. More specifically, if they have, have they experienced anything similar to what i have and am still experiencing recently, which to put it as concisely as i can, the fact that what would seem to be a well-established and relatively straightforward process of choosing the loans to consolidate and listing them, selecting the repayment option, and sending in the information, has in actuality turned into being told that my packet of paperwork was missing certain pages (which i find very dubious) and then after spending multiple afternoons on the phone with most of that time spent on hold, and normally being transferred multiple times within each call before somebody can tell me much anything, i will end up given instructions of some variation involving sending in this particular section again by way of either printing out the page and taking a picture with my phone then emailing, or fax, or taking a picture of the section in the online application with my phone, but the end result always is that whatever i did turns out not to be sufficient or allowable under their parameters.

My latest effort ended up being to go into the account one has in their system and go into the online application, fill it out entirely just as i did the paper version at the start of this process, and send it in via that way. I thought if anything, this would accomplish what was needed. Now though the supposed issue is that this person or their entire office maybe, the group i have have been redirected to as the "servicer" for my old loans, has (allegedly) no way to gain access to the online application's info. Because it was sent on the government website and not directly to them.

When i asked the person how it would get accomplished with getting the information from the federal agency to her group (a subcontractor) all she could do was repeat the supposed fact that they were separate and that she did not have access, 2 or 3 times, and then either our call got disconnected or (i lean toward this) the woman actually just hung up on me. I should add that i was speaking pretty calmly while she seemed to be getting flustered.

So overall i guess im just curious if anyone has seen anything similar in this kind of process. Its actually tough to imagine that this level of incompetence spanning so many people within one organization could be "organic" or legitimate. Not sure how exactly it would benefit them other than they might be able to tie up the proceedings and generate interest or other assorted surcharges as it drags out, or maybe discourage people to the point of giving up on the process for the time being and do the aforementioned on a larger scale. I should add that while anyone's experience in dealing with the process is welcome, i have no need to talk over the purely financial advantages or disadvantages of consolidation or discuss any dollar amounts. Just whatever anyone can offer on the process or any insight into what might be at work here on the agency's part. Thanks.

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    Given "i have no need to talk over the purely financial advantages or disadvantages of consolidation or discuss any dollar amounts.", all that's really left is a (perhaps justified) moan against bureaucracy.
    – TripeHound
    Jul 10, 2019 at 6:53
  • Yes, i guess that is possible. And i only added the part about not going into the consolidation discussion or monetary discussion because i went through all that at the start of this overall process, and i notice most discussions of this topic tend to center around those 2 things. So just streamlining things a bit. Jul 10, 2019 at 19:20
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    Welcome to Personal Finance and Money! The format of this site is question and answer rather than a discussion board. Can you distill this into an easy to read and easy to answer question? Don't worry if this question gets closed in the mean time. We can reopen it when it matches the format better. Jul 12, 2019 at 14:23

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Its been a while since I had a student loan, but what you have here is a poor customer service organization. It happens, and it seems like with the student loan industry, it happens more frequently than others.

If one has a car loan, and is unhappy with the way they are being treated, there are many banks/credit unions that would be happy to do a good job. This does not seem to be the case with student loans.

One organization I had a lot of success with was this one. I refinanced my student loans through them and was actually able to pay them off. It seems many student loan administrators make it difficult to make extra principle payments.

The administrators you are dealing with has made a decision to provide a poor customer experience. The employees and provide little or no training, and are probably as confused as you are. If you can move on, and find a different provider.

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  • You may well be right too. Thanks for the suggestion. I will look into them Jul 10, 2019 at 19:22

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