Student loan vent

Grassyknoll, that's fantastic news! I'm sure they'll be sending you everything in the mail.

Andrea, thanks very much for the phone number. I've since discovered that BOA hasn't receive ANYTHING from the uni, I'm not even in the system yet for my Stafford Loan.   She told me to call on Monday and if they still don't have it by then I should call the university. I called the other number about my private loan and they still haven't received the fax. The uni will be getting a phone call from me on Monday morning...

Grassyknoll, that's fantastic news! I'm sure they'll be sending you everything in the mail.

Andrea, thanks very much for the phone number. I've since discovered that BOA hasn't receive ANYTHING from the uni, I'm not even in the system yet for my Stafford Loan.   She told me to call on Monday and if they still don't have it by then I should call the university. I called the other number about my private loan and they still haven't received the fax. The uni will be getting a phone call from me on Monday morning...

Ugh, hang in there.  I just called BOA myself (was going to wait until after the holiday but I couldn't help myself) and my school cert hasn't been received either....I'm in the system though because I filled out my MPN online (so all they need is that form from my uni to complete the file.)  The form's been in the mail for a week so hopefully by the end of next week they'll have it (and if they don't, my uni is getting yet another phone call from me!)

And of course this week would *have* to be the week that the loan dude at my school is on holiday    At last report he hadn't even gotten the certification form for my private loan, so I'll have to chase that up on Monday, get him to send it off, then I have to wait another 10 days or whatever until it makes its way through the postal service back to the US.  Thankfully, though once that's done it's only a 48-hour turnaround for the TERI loan, unlike the Stafford.

I am going to be so glad when this is all over....

EDIT- Just for kicks, I looked at the Royal Mail website and Airmail is supposed to take 5 business days.  Today's the fifth business day, so I'm really hoping for next week!  Although, my conditional offer took three freaking weeks to come in the mail back in February (and I still haven't received my unconditional offer and it's been almost three weeks...but that's a whole other bag of frustrations, sigh.)

And of course this week would *have* to be the week that the loan dude at my school is on holiday   

Maybe my loan dude is on holiday too... He better be if he knows what's good for him!!! Have a good weekend! Get ready for Monday updates!

I'm all for grabbing a pint when we all get through this melée!  We'll have to find a central meeting place to congratulate ourselves.

I had planned to phone every Monday to see what the latest was, but in light of the holiday, I might wait until AFTER that to see if MAYBE things have moved forward.

We have an immigration lawyer/expert on the boards - too bad we don't have a banker!

Update numero dos -

    I came home, and there was a letter in my mailbox outlining my loans and payment dates.  <b>YESSSS</b>.  I can't tell you what a relief it was to see it and actually hold it in my hands.  So all my stuff is on the way to the Visa folks tomorrow.

    We'll see how that all goes.

    I'm starting my graduate work (Masters) at Cardiff University in the Fall (hopefully).  I think meeting up somewhere and celebrating actually making it through this god foresaken loan process is an excellent idea if others are like minded.  I don't mind travelling once I'm settled.

   

Congrats!  Glad you didn't have to jump through the same hurdles as we did.  Let us know how everything goes.

Here's the update!
So, I call the numbers again, I'm still not in the Bank of America's system and my certification still hasn't been faxed. I call the guy at the university who says that they received a letter that my Stafford loans have been approved and haven't I received this?? Uh, no. I ask if he can fax me a copy of this letter which he does. As for the faxed certification for my private loan I tell him the fax number where they sent it and he has no idea where that fax machine is located. He gives me the proper number and when I call Teri back they won't allow me to give them a new fax number, this all has to be done by the university, AND they only refax things every two weeks which means my refax wouldn't be scheduled until next week. Come to find out the number they faxed to at the uni is disconnected! The guy from the uni emails me and says his BOA contact in London is going to get all this sorted and he should be verifying that the certification is getting refaxed to the proper number. I called Teri and told them that if they fax to a disconnected number and they get a failed fax notice back, shouldn't they have contacted SOMEONE to get a proper fax number!? 

So, in a nutshell:

My stafford loans were approved and they are sending me the documents to my house - yea!!!

I'm praying that this faxed certification will somehow make it's way to the uni in the next day or so. I'll definitely be calling every day to see if it's there!

yay OnMyWay!  Although- that's weird that you weren't in the Bank of America system but yet your loans are approved...that sort of makes me doubt the accuracy of BOA's call centers (which isn't at all surprising sigh...)

Here's my update- I've been calling loan dude since Monday but still haven't been able to get onto him- last I heard today someone's supposed to email me back with information    Anyway, the issue I'm dealing with is that at last report my uni had not received the faxed certification form from IEFC/TERI (this seems to be the same problem that you're having OnMyWay!) and I'm trying to figure out if loan dude had gotten ahold of it in the 10 days since I last spoke to him.  I'm getting more and more frustrated with the runaround and so I'm going to call IEFC and see what they can do on my behalf as far as sending another form.  We shall see. It just frustrates me to no end that getting one little form to the right person could be so difficult!!

As far as my Stafford loan...well, I'm going to call BOA today to see if they've received my certification form yet- I'm trying to wait until later in the day so that if they get it today it'll be processed by the time I call.  If they don't have it yet, I'm calling back on Friday...and if they don't have it by Friday (2 weeks after it was mailed from England), then I'm probably going to start worrying a bit 

Oh, and even though this isn't related to student loans I'll stick it in here because it's the most appropriate thread for it. So I've been waiting on my unconditional offer letter for the last three weeks- at the beginning of June the postgrad admissions officer for the department said that they had received my final transcript and I would be hearing from them in a week.  I took that to mean that they would be mailing my letter in a week, and now it's been 4 weeks since they received my transcript....and still no letter.  So, I finally call my department office today and what does the lady tell me?  They put it in the mail.....YESTERDAY!  A month after they were supposed to!  I was waiting on the letter so I could have confirmation of official term/enrolment dates in writing before buying my plane ticket, but that's not going to happen now....    I think I'm just going to buy my plane ticket for the date that I want and hope for the best *sigh*

GREAT NEWS!!! My certification has been received by the loan company and I should have the final word on that loan by Friday! 

Andrea, I think what happened with BOA is that they must have sold my loan immediately (similar to a mortgage) to someone else who has already taken over it which would explain why I wasn't in their system.

As for your crappy loan dude...do you have an international advisor that you can speak with? Call IEFC and BOA and ask for the fax numbers where they sent your certification. This is how I found out about the disconnected line. They willingly gave me the fax number and when I told the guy at uni the number he discovered it was disconnected. They would have never known that their number wasn't working if I hadn't asked the loan people and brought it to the uni's attention.

Well, I called IEFC today actually and got them to fax another form to my uni (to the exact fax number I specified, which I know will get it to the right person!)  I also emailed loan dude as well.  I'm going to call tomorrow and keep calling until I talk to this guy- I need to make sure he got the fax and that he fills it out and faxes it back to IEFC...preferably tomorrow, but definitely by end of business on Friday.  The damn thing will take 2 minutes to fill out so there's no reason he can't turn it around quickly.  I really am fed up with this whole business- I am *done* being nice.  If being a b*tch is the only way to get things done, so be it!   With any luck that loan will be approved sometime next week.

Also, just called BOA: ARGHHH!!! They've received my school certification, but there's a bloody HOLD on my Stafford loan because crappy loan dude made my loan period greater than 366 days!  I'm quite annoyed right now.  Nice BOA dude on the phone is going to call me back in the next 5 minutes to tell me how I can rectify this situation, which will no doubt entail more cooperation from crappy loan dude.  Yay...except not. 

YES!!! I love you nice BOA call center dude!   He changed the dates right then and there, so there's no longer a hold on my loan! Now all I'm waiting for is the guarantor (aka the feds) to do their stuff   The BOA guy told me that it shouldn't take that long, so I'm hoping next week or the week after.  Ahh, this makes my day 

Ha, good luck, Andrea.  "Shouldn't take long" has turned into 3 weeks for me!  I sent an e-mail to some supervisor today, basically saying that it was ridiculous for my loan to take this long, since the domestic Stafford only takes 48 hrs.  The call centre has been unhelpful, always giving me the line of "up to a month" because it's in the guarantor's hands & apparently there's nothing they can do.  Yeah right.

 

my visa stuff is all ready and waiting.  All I need is the damned loan papers!

hugs, Aless! Crossing my fingers for both of us   Keep calling, and when you do get the supervisors on the phone and have them tell you exactly what's going on.  We shouldn't have to put up with this! (Sorry, I'm just in a really ass-kicking mood right now, lol!) 

Aless, I got the "up to a month" line when I called the BOA call center line as well. I wasn't in their system and they told me it could take up to a month. I called the uni and he told me he had received the notice that I was approved and when he faxed me the letter it was a different number that I needed to call, not the BOA call center number. I was in this other company's system and everything was set to go. In fact, I had been been approved on June 21st and never even known! They were going to resend the letter out that day. The uni will get a letter if you are approved for the loan, so you might want to contact them to see if they've heard anything.

Andrea, I'm glad the BOA guy could be so helpful! I'm glad I didn't have to resort to b*tchiness, but I was ready to if the situation arose! At this point, I think it's justified if you have to bust it out!

UPDATE!  Just on a whim, I called BOA this morning to make sure that the changes I made yesterday had worked out....lo and behold, the lady on the phone told me that the guarantor needed the contact details of my loan person at the uni.  Then, she told me it would take a few weeks to be processed    So Aless, did you make sure they have those details- perhaps that's the holdup?  What really irks me is that I *never* would have known about the need to provide this information if I hadn't called them!  That is pretty ridiculous *sigh*