Sallie Mae gets schooled on dealmaking

What thousands of college graduates and their parents would like to know is "why Sallie Mae is allowed to continue with their unethical deceptive practices?" Study the stories by thousands of people on the internet, all about how Sallie Mae is ruining lives with their deceptive contracts, their undisclosed variable interest rates, their failure to provide correct and stable information to desperately confused clients, their broken promises to help clients who are unable to pay the surprising interest rates, their garnishings of disability checks, social security checks, etc.

Giving 2 million dollars as a "Mea Cupa" fine to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's education fund doesn't help the thousands of afflicted, desperate, suffering, ruined clients of Sallie Mae who have been deceived. When will the politicans on Capital Hill finally admit they caused all this horror for thousands of people year in and year out because of receiving campaign funding from Sallie Mae?

I am in my 40's with a BA degree which was partially financed with student loans. My Sallie Mae horror story started about 17 years ago, when health issues (I've since recovered) ultimately resulted in my student loans going into default. I borrowed about $16,000 for college and for a year of law school. Long story short, my loans, having gone into default now include an additional $2,000 in principal as a result of my loans being passed back and forth between various government agencies, $18,000 in accumulated interest, and over $10,000 in "fees and costs." Altogether, my student loan debt now exceeds $50,000. Such tripling of debt is by no means unusual. You can read stories of similar situations of others at www.studentloanjustice.org.

The "fees and costs" assessed by the US Department of Education, and its contract beggar-bounty hunter collection agencies (mostly owned by SLM Corporation/Sallie Mae), are supposedly for the purposes of "locating" me. I've lived in the same place and have worked at the same company for years. I have a driver's license. I have a car registered in my name. I have a bank account. I am registered to vote. I have credit cards. I am not that difficult to find. The true purpose of these "fees and costs" is to line the pockets of the multimillionaire management and boost the stock price of SLM Corporation a/k/a "Sallie Mae," which has not been a government entity for a number of years. SLM Corporation Chairman Albert L. Lord has parlayed his accounting degree from Penn State University into nine-figure net worth. He has his own private golf course and recently tried to purchase, FOR CASH, the Washington Nationals Major League Baseball Team.

As a result of my defaulted student loans, my friends, family, and I have been harassed for years by SLM Corporation-owned beggar-bounty hunter collection agencies such as General Revenue Corporation and the infamously abusive Pioneer Credit Recovery. In 1997, shortly before she died of cancer, my mother was told by a General Revenue Corporation collection clerk that she should "make [her] deadbeat son repay [my] student loans before [she] dropped dead."

Murder, treason, and student loans. These are the only 3 things in our legal system for which there are no statutes of limitations. As far as the US Department of Education is concerned, I am in the same league with Scooter Libby, Benedict Arnold, and Al Capone. The bile and venom with which student loan debt is pursued includes wage garnishment without the benefit of a day in court, tax refund intercept, and bank levies. There are people who are dying of terminal illnesses who are having their Social Security payments garnished because of decades-old student loans.

My wife and I make a solid middle-class income, yet we can not purchase a home because of these outstanding student loans. I live life like a fugitive in my own country, although I have committed no crime.

Thank you for the info about your cases. I am also at my wits end with SLM and YES, every time I call I get a different story, or contractual lecture from the operator overseas telling me how I am late, even though I fill out every form they tell me too. They even assigned a skip-tracer to contact the woman who bought my old house hoping they could "get me that way"- sad thing is, SLM has ALL my my current info. I have never tried to hide from them because I have a legit deferrment. God this is a true nightmare. I wonder how many people have been put through this nightmare, who haven't voiced their concerns on any website.