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Private Student Loans

NikolaeVarius

NikolaeVarius

Lifer
I know there's hate against private student loans but meh, I need to get some this year.

Anyone have any good things to say about any particular credit organization? I've been looking around, and I don't really have a good metric as to which organization to prefer.

I wanted to go with my local credit union, but apparently they stopped giving out student 2 years ago. which is a PITA.
 
I have some private student loans through Sallie Mae, and haven't had any problems with them. But I've heard some horror stories, be careful. Their interest rates are kind of high too, but I guess rates have gotten higher since I last took out a loan.
 
96Firebird said:
I have some private student loans through Sallie Mae, and haven't had any problems with them. But I've heard some horror stories, be careful.
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Be very careful through Sallie Mae. My wife has a few through them and we've had a fair amount of problems. Every time we send an extra payment we have issues as they never apply it to the loan with the highest interest rate despite us following the stated procedures for requesting such.

Also - if we send out the payment the day after we get the bill its not uncommon for them to enter that as an extra payment for last months bill (on the wrong one of course) and then try to charge us a fee for not paying the current months bill

We've always gotten it straightened out and they've removed the fees pretty easily but she still spends an inordinate amount of time on the phone with them
 
With Sallie Mae, I do everything online. My loans are split up on there, so I can choose which loan I want my extra money to go to. They both have different due dates as well, so that makes it easier for me. And I usually pay the day after (or the day of) when the new statement shows up online, and haven't had any problems with it. But those are the types of stories I've heard about, makes you wonder if they do it on purpose knowing that most people are either lazy or don't pay attention to extra fees added on...
 
NikolaeVarius said:
I know there's hate against private student loans but meh, I need to get some this year.

Anyone have any good things to say about any particular credit organization? I've been looking around, and I don't really have a good metric as to which organization to prefer.

I wanted to go with my local credit union, but apparently they stopped giving out student 2 years ago. which is a PITA.
Click to expand...
http://www.alliantcreditunion.org/loans/student/
 
Most of my loans were through CitiBank (studentloan.com IIRC). They have a very low interest rate right now - lower than federal student loans by about 2% APR. I haven't had any problems with them yet.
 
96Firebird said:
makes you wonder if they do it on purpose knowing that most people are either lazy or don't pay attention to extra fees added on...
Click to expand...

The consistancey with which they screw up and the fact that those screw ups have always been in their favor does make us wonder
 
i have some through sallie mae and have never had any issues with them the past 8 years. every month it's just auto-deducted from my bank account.
 
I got mine through Bank of America years ago.. They've switched hands twice since then and are now with AES. I've never had a problem with the companies involved though.
 
NikolaeVarius said:
By and chance were they made like 20 years ago? Because the best I'm seeing is like 4% for variable interest, and I'm almost 100% that variable interest is a massively terrible idea.
Click to expand...

graduated in 2004 and i think i started paying back in 2005 but don't really remember. i remember i consolidated sometime around those dates.
 
Did you guys do variable or fixed rate. Fixed rates are higher, but I'm pretty sure the variable rates while starting at 4, can shoot up to 12%.

But anyone also have anything else thats not sallie mae?
 
Screw Sallie Mae:

They will not send out a tax form to you unless you specifically call and ask them for one. Come to think of it, I still haven't gotten mine.

Because of the payoff amount and all that calcuations, I overpayed by a few dollars on accident. Apparently it no longer exists because they said they don't have it.

Once you pay off your loan they close your online account so I can't log back in for any records.

I had a variable interest rate loan. My wife and I started throwing money at this lona because the interest rate was high at 8%. Once hey saw this, they bumped it up to 14%.

GL, HF.
 
I used Citibank along with Sallie Mae. I also consolidated them back in 2004-5 so my fixed rates are just above 3%. No problems with them at all. I'd never choose variable rates.
 
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