First, I am a Peace Corps Volunteer, which means that by US standards, I have pretty much no money. Fortunately for me, I thus get to have a deferment on my student loans. Unfortunately for me, it’s held by these unbelievably stupid people at Wachovia.
Back…oh, last year, in April or May or so, I sent off my request for my loan deferment, along with my little letter from the Peace Corps. Lalala. Maybe six weeks later, I checked my account on the internet and it said that my loan obligation was filled. I am happy.
In December, I find out from my dad that my loan is really, really, really late. This was discovered when the Wachovia morons called his best friend (who I used as a reference on my loans back a zillion years ago when I was in college), looking for me. Why they couldn’t just call my parents, who have the same phone number and live in the same house as they did way back then, I don’t know. Not to mention, you know us employees of the US government, we’re real hard to find.
I email Wachovia. They tell me I had a loan with them, but it was sold in 2002. They don’t know why I’m emailing them.
I swear at the monitor a lot. The other people in the internet club look at me like I’m crazy.
I exchange fifteen emails with the dipshits at Wachovia, trying to get them to tell me where the fuck my loan is, cause if they don’t have it, they must have sold it. Finally, I give in and spend my hard-earned leva and call them. Ten minutes later, they admit that they do know who I am and yes, they do have my loan. Apparently, my original request never arrived. Why my account on their webpage seems to indicate that my payment obligation has been filled remains a mystery. The CSR promises to mail a form to my parents, who will forward it to me.
In January, I receive this form. I fill it out, fax it off to Wachovia, and I am happy that my dealings with these dumbasses have come to an end.
7. Today. I got a package from my parents (thanks, mom & dad!), including a brand new letter from my buddies at Wachovia. It says that they can’t apply my deferment request because my loan didn’t disperse before 1993.
WTF? Of course it didn’t disperse before 1993. I was in high school in 1993. What does 1993 have to do with anything?
So, I stomped on down here to the phone center in my village and called them again (4.48 leva that I’ll never see again). It turns out that I shouldn’t have sent them Form A (which is for people whose loans predate 1993), I should have sent them Form B. OH OF COURSE. How could I have possibly been so stupid as to send them the fucking form they mailed me? I should have known immediately that if they sent me a form, it’s automatically the wrong one! Prior experience should have told me that!
At this rate I’ll probably get my deferment in place at about when I have to go back to the US. Of course, I want to go to grad school then, which means, yes, another deferment. AWESOME.
I feel your anger, it’s strong and with the right instruments, it could certainly become a club hit.
Seriously - when dealing with these kind of people, it’s best to take pre-emptive meassures: meditation, valium. The simple fact is - you cannot win. You have to play by their rules, which will change from each time you talk to them.
Cause it could use the help. Same as for any country, I guess.
About half of us are English teachers (including myself). The Bulgarian government wants its children to learn English, but unfortunately not many Bulgarians speak English, to teach it. Plus, those that do can usually get a better-paying job than that of public school teacher (salary: the Bulgarian equivalent of 100 euro a month).
The rest work with kids or community development. Bulgaria managed to wrangle its way into the EU, but living standards here are significantly lower than what you probably think of when you think “EU”. The average salary here is about US$200 a month, unemployment is high, life is hard.
That said, Bulgaria, along with Romania, is one of the wealthiest and most advanced countries that the Peace Corps operates in, something I am grateful every morning when I take a nice hot shower.
Thanks for the answer. I was surprised, since Bulgaria joined at the new year and the EU has some rules of compliance. I guess they think letting them join will speed up the process and maybe keep them out of the potential squeeze Putin is putting on a lot of former allies.
This is somewhat of a hijack, but it’s my thread so, whatever. IMO, Bulgaria and Romania were allowed into the EU because the EU had previously told them they could join in 2007 and right now they don’t want to look like they’re trying to avoid letting in any new members.
I feel your pain, I had to deal with a lot of the same crap when I got my deferment for being in the military. No opportunity they can create for hassles and paperwork is overlooked.
I know you said you have no money, but let me offer some unsolicited advice. If you can put ANY money toward your loans while you are in ‘deferred’ status, do it! All of the money goes directly against the principal . I didn’t find this out until I only had a year left on active duty, and I wish I would have known about it sooner.
What difference does it make to pay down the principal when the interest keeps compounding over just making a normal payment? Unless these are federally subsidized loans, deferrment just defers payments, not interest.
forbarance allows you to not pay but continues acruing intrest. Deferment defers payment and intrest.
I’ve had student loans for eight years. been there, done that, got the stack of letters. btw, if you ever want to get more student loans, I strongly suggest consolidating with the US government rather than a bank after you get out. Surprisingly, they screw up less and are more understanding when things like job loss, car accidents, and babies get in the way of payments.
There’s less principal for it to compound against? Or you’re saying they’re going to collect the total pre-calculated principal plus interest no matter what?
Be glad Wachovia isn’t screwing around with your accounts. My SO ended up ~$600 in the hole due to them repeatedly mistating her account balance online.
Their online system has really been sucking since the last upgrade. And what’s up with their Billpay now? I used to be able to post a payment up to a day or so before the due date; now it has to be at least five days. And, despite their promises, I still can’t download data into Quicken past 11 PM.
Have I mentioned the time that the brilliant dipshits at Wachovia placed $14,000 of my mom’s money into my savings account? They were counter deposits, so both times Mom was able to specify the exact account (her savings account) for the deposit…and yet it ended up with me. Except for the last name, our names are nothing alike…heck, we have different types of savings accounts (hers is some kind of money market account, mine is just a plain savings account).
Kyla, I’m sending an email to your listed address. If it isn’t the one you currently use, please shoot me a note at RolandOrzabal “at” gmail.com. I have some advice that may be of use, and I’m limited in what I can say here.
Anyone else posting a complaint to this thread is encouraged to do the same.
The rules of compliance don’t include economic level. They do include having certain economic rules.
Having had to deal with Wachovia, Kyla, I am quite familiar with your pain.
A few weeks back I set a filter in my primary email account to send anything from paypal to the dumpster. Why, you say. Well, you see:
last time I was in the US (2003-2004), I opened an account with them, using that email. When I left the country, I tried to change the address, but of course you can’t change it to another country. Tried to close the account, couldn’t.
Fast forward to three months ago. I loaded up my skype account and mistakenly did it from that paypal account. I tried to get the payment cancelled when I realized the error of my ways, but no go. So I fire paypal a message, and no answer.
Several weeks later, I started getting emails from paypal saying I owe them something like $14.53. They
do not accept e-transfer
do not accept paypal
do not accept credit cards
Only money orders, personal check drawn on a US bank or cashier’s check (excuse me, what century are we in? And what bank does not accept itself? I know paypal isn’t exactly a bank but heck!). The fee for a cashier’s check is about 3x what I owe them. I send a money order.
The emails keep coming. The Swiss post tells me the money order arrived and was paid. The emails include a line saying “if you’ve sent the money in, disregard this email”. Every time that I’ve written, I get answered by a different CSR. One of the most glorious answer (to a letter where I said I’d sent a Swiss Post money order that would be paid to paypal by Western Union and asked whether WU was an “acceptable payer”) was “if you sent the money from the US it should have arrived already”… uh, which part of “Swiss” and “not in the US any more” do you not understand?
Since I did send the money in and I trust the Swiss Post more than anybody in US banking, I’m disregarding the emails. Because I can.
If you pay down your principal balance, by the time the loan goes back into repayment you can actually have a lower monthly payment and still have the same amount of time to pay the loan off in. You’re also paying off the interest that is accruing (deferments only defer interest on subsidized loans, not unsubsidized) so that doesn’t get tacked on at the end and become part of your principal balance.
The only thing I can suggest, Kyla, is get nasty and insist on talking to a supervisor. I used to work for a loan servicing center (not Wachovia) and I know that there’s a limit to what the average floor worker can do for you paperwork wise. If I’d taken the call, I’d have flagged it for the supervisor and kept track of it to make sure everything went down correctly.
Good luck. The only good thing is it should be applied retroactively.
Edited to add: is there a number they can call you at in Bulgaria? At my old job, they would call clients who weren’t in the States at your request so you didn’t have to foot the bill of the phone call. (of course, Wachovia might not be so nice about it, I don’t know.)
Not as far as I know. Actually, my GSM is malfunctioning at the moment so I can’t call anyone anyway. Being phoneless sucks, it turns out. Knowing these bastards, they’d probably call me at like, 4 am anyway.
This thread has taught me one thing, though - Pitting doesn’t just make you feel better, sometimes it actually accomplishes stuff, if the right people read your thread. Thanks, Roland Orzabal!
Ugh, I get phone spam from Wachovia ALL THE TIME. I hate them. When I graduated from college a few years ago, I consolidated my loans with a different company (which has been great).
Wachovia keeps calling me and leaving messages about “the application I requested from them” (never happened). Finally they actually called me when I was able to answer my phone. The guy I talked to said that it was noted on my file that I’d requested an application from another rep to consolidate my loans. Also never happened. I told the guy as much, and also mentioned that I had consolidated my loans several years ago. Hopefully I won’t hear from them again.
Even if I hadn’t consolidated my loans already, why would I want to use a company that was already lying to me before I even put in an application?
badbadrubberpiggy, have you ever had any accounts with them at all? One thing that sometimes happens at banks is that, while accessing your accounts to help you with a legitimate concern, a teller or phone rep will place a note on your account stating that he or she “spoke with the customer about a loan application”, even if this never actually took place. They do this in order to receive referral credit – and the money that usually comes along with it – if you ever do choose to take out a loan. If that’s what happened here, the guy calling you isn’t lying to you; he’s just misinformed. The real culprit is whoever placed the note in the first place.
Obviously, it’s a wrong thing to do; perhaps not so obviously, it doesn’t thrill the bank either…and you’re a perfect example of the reason why. Banks, generally speaking, don’t want to piss off their existing customers by constantly badgering them about products for which they have no use, especially via phone, and double-especially when it involves claiming that you actually requested the calls when you know perfectly well that that’s so much bullshit.
What you can do is to call Wachovia’s customer service line, and ask them to remove you from their telephone solicitation list (if you haven’t already). This will prevent anyone from calling you with a sales pitch in the future. You might also mention the reason for your request, and ask the representative to report the false sales note on your account. At the very least, they’ll stop calling you, and who knows, you might even get an apology out of them.
