I wish I knew that three years ago. I had a Perkins loan with Heartland ECSI. At the beginning of COVID, they kept screwing up how much I owed them. I would log in a few days before payment should have been due, and it said I owed them $0. So I thought this loan was on the same thing my Stafford loans were on, where I owed no payment temporarily due to COVID.
I log in a few days later then it says I owe my normal payment + late fee and it says I am overdue. I call their customer service and I explain the situation. The lady seemed to not believe me. “No, it says you owe X amount. I would not have said 0.” Given that I caught this fast enough, if I paid it now it wouldn’t have affected my credit. I just paid the payment plus the small fee because I did not have the energy to fight due to dealing with the world’s crisis and my own added problems at home.
The next month, I see that it says I owe nothing again. Well, maybe they finally got the student loan pause stuff figured out. Nope, same thing. Not knowing if I was just going nuts, and factoring in my intense burnout, I just paid off the whole thing. Fortunately it was not much, but enough that my savings for a down payment was wiped out. I really could have used that money but for a finance company to just screw up so badly on a simple thing I just did not want anything to do with them any more.
I wish I knew that three years ago. I had a Perkins loan with Heartland ECSI. At the beginning of COVID, they kept screwing up how much I owed them. I would log in a few days before payment should have been due, and it said I owed them $0. So I thought this loan was on the same thing my Stafford loans were on, where I owed no payment temporarily due to COVID.
I log in a few days later then it says I owe my normal payment + late fee and it says I am overdue. I call their customer service and I explain the situation. The lady seemed to not believe me. “No, it says you owe X amount. I would not have said 0.” Given that I caught this fast enough, if I paid it now it wouldn’t have affected my credit. I just paid the payment plus the small fee because I did not have the energy to fight due to dealing with the world’s crisis and my own added problems at home.
The next month, I see that it says I owe nothing again. Well, maybe they finally got the student loan pause stuff figured out. Nope, same thing. Not knowing if I was just going nuts, and factoring in my intense burnout, I just paid off the whole thing. Fortunately it was not much, but enough that my savings for a down payment was wiped out. I really could have used that money but for a finance company to just screw up so badly on a simple thing I just did not want anything to do with them any more.
It’s too late for that situation, but in the future take screenshots. They can serve as some proof of what you saw.