American Education Services [AES]
Reviews and Complaints

I have 2 loans, made in different years, with these idiots. I have been making payments thru my banks bill pay referencing the loans as SEQ 1 and SEQ 2 as the idiot at the AES call center told me to. Up until this year (2012) they have been being applied correctly to the proper account. THIS YEAR they are not being applied to the specified account. The IDIOT at the AES call center said that for the payments to be properly applied I have to use their payment section from the web site - which wants my bank account number, routing number and other info that will make it easier for them to take money without permission.
What can be done about this crap? this is only going to make it easier for me to default by them jacking with my payments. HELP!

American education services calls me from multiple numbers on a daily basis trying to collect my debt. My mother paid to get my loans current so I could again enter deferment or forbearance and had them send the form in the mail. The company still has not sent the forms and it has been about three weeks. When they call and I feel like being harassed about not having a job in this economy, I answer and repeat the aforementioned payment they ask for an additional payment. I tell them they need to send the forms if they haven't already and still no forms. Aes bought my loan from gmac (Gmc-the car company's student loan agency) and changed my interest rates, capitalization, among others. My loan skyrocketed from around $42, 000-$46, 000 to about $69, 000 with the interest they capitalize every quarter.in addition, I was not notified the company would take interest on top of my interest already accruing whilst in forbearance.in january I will be able to make my first actual payment but I will never get out of their high interest rates adding over a third to my loan. There must be some legislation, laws, something to go back on them for these predatory lending practices.

I originally had three student loans with american education services. I recently consolidated two of them with a different company. When that company sent over payment for the loans apparently they sent the wrong amount and were short approx. $20. I was not notified of this. I made my monthly student loan payment in full expecting the payment to be made to the one loan I still had with aes. Aes took my payment and split it between the three loans to cover the balance left behind from the consolidation which I did not know about or approve. The following monday they listed my account as delinquent and began calling me, my co-signer and my references trying to collect the past due amount when I had paid them the full amount due. I have since emailed them five times and called them three times in attempt to remedy the situation. Each time I am met with conflict. They are rude and condescending. They harass me and hang up on me. They continue to call and harass me and they refuse to remove the delinquent status from my account until they reapply the payment that they screwed up in the first place. This is 100% their mistake yet I am somehow the one being harassed. Delinquent by definition means past due or overdue. This does not define my account status since I paid them the full agreed upon amount. They applied my money to the wrong loan without my consent or approval. Not only is that misappropriation on their part but the fact that they call me several times daily to harass me about a bill I paid is illegal. Misappropriation and harassment. I want it to stop.

Do not do business with this shady company. The first payment my husband sent AES was over $1800 to cover the interest that would be rolled into the principal if we didn't pay it. Well, we made the check out to them, mailed it to them in their envelope, and the check was cashed, but they never posted it to the account. So for five months we have been out the $1800 and the interest got rolled into the principal, making the payments larger. The company has been completely incompetent in dealing with it. Repeated phone calls and faxes have led absolutely nowhere, and even though our bank is trying to assist, AES is stonewalling. All we get is a semi-literate customer service rep on the phone saying "we didn't get your check, " so it's not our problem. Our bank did a pipeline search for the money, which AES was supposed to complete. Again, just a phone call from someone who knows nothing saying "we didn't get it." No paper trail? No letter? No phone call from someone who makes more than $8/hr.?
They are forcing our bank to spend more resources to trace the cashed check, and I would bet the whole lot that it turns out to be within their organization, albeit in the wrong account. Although it also wouldn't surprise me if one of their employees stole it.

I was delinquent on my student loan from AES. I received an email stating if I did not catch up, they would report me to collections. I called them up and asked the minimum amount to pay to stay out of collections, and they said $180. Sure, no problem, I paid it. A week later I get another call and email that I am behind and about to go to collections. I called them back to make sure it wasn't just a delay in the system, and they stated that the total amount needed to be paid was $600~ not $180. I didn't have the money for that, so the guy recommended I file for verbal forbearance. I agreed, and did the entire phone authorization, answering questions and agreeing to begin repaying on a certain date. He said I'd be good to go but I still might get a call for a few days, and possibly another letter in the mail, until the system catches up. Roughly two weeks later I get a letter from a collection agency saying I owed them money for AES. I immediately call up AES and they tell me there is nothing in the system about a forbearance request. I told her the original date I called and made the $180, then how I had called up again and did the forbearance. She insisted I did not, so I told her, "you record conversations, look it up". She said she saw that I had called in the system, and transfered me to a supposed manager. The manager said that the guy took down the forbearance information but never actually COMPLETED it. She apologized and said that if I quickly (it was a Friday) went to the site and filled out the form in the account area, she would personally deal with it and make sure it was removed from collections. I filled it out and a week later, a call came in from collections stating I owed money and they were going to garnish my wages. The lady at the agency told me the lady never did anything and NEVER to do verbal forbearance because these companies pull this ### all the time. Yes, calls are recorded, but that it's their word, as a lender, verse mine. Needless to say, there needs to be a class action lawsuit against AES, as they willingly are negligent and f*** over peoples credit to get their money back.

I recently had a conversation with an AES supervisor about the payoff of my law school loans. She gave me a final payoff figure that corresponded to the amount of the final payment due if my electronic bank transfer was completed in two days. I told her that I would have my bank do the transfer that very day. I asked her what happens if AES receives and processes my final payment a day early. How would my overpayment be handled? She told me that if the overpayment is more than $5.00, I would receive a reimbursement check from AES. But, if the overpayment is less than $5.00, AES would keep it.

If anyone has had this experience, I would very much like to talk with you. I am a class action attorney in California investigating claims against the company.

Please help me understand why you humans, that we call people go to college. I mean seriously, you take out loans, you obviously do not read what you are signing for then, years later you # and complain. Like seriously, what the hell are you people complaining for? Like give me a break, do you understand the initials of "aes"? It stands for american education services! Meaning, when you take out a loan through the bank, that contract, that non-negotiable contract that you signed for the bank, is what aes does. Aes must abide by the contract you signed. They do not own the loan. They service! They handle the dirty work for the bank. So if you are having a tough time supporting yourself, and your loan doesn't offer anything. Its not aes' fault. When your loan doesn't offer help. It is not aes fault. When you are receiving phone calls about your delinquency status or your cosigner that's 50+, its not us harrassing, its the agreement that you and your cosigner must follow. They have a right to know if the account is past due or not. Why? Because if you do not make the payment it effects both parties.. How about you not ask your grandparents to help, then they won't get calls when you become late. As for a college loan, seriously, there like 10+ yr terms. So with that long as term your princ may increase, depending if you defer your payments. Interest accrues, & it caps... Depending on the type of loan, you either get a fixed rate, normally with govt issued loans, or a private, its going to change either monthly or quarterly, and normally they are based on the economy. Anytime that you make your payments interest accrues daily. So tip of the day, make your payments every 30 days or less to sat the interest. & by the contract of your p-note. Aes or any other servicer do not have to send out bills. Its a courtesy reminder. However once you start paying and you send in a check, you obviously know when your freakin money is due. So no # about I didn't get a bill. Normal payments that are due monthly is normally due on the same date of each month. Hope you learn something, #s from college!

American Education Services is the worst student loan company anywhere! I have $80, 000 in student loans between Direct Loans and Express Loans. I recently consolidated all of my loans with Direct Loans. Direct Loans paid off Express Loans and sent them a check for the amount I owed them. However, Express loans sold my loan to American Express Services in the middle of my consolidation. AES received my loan AND the pay off check from Express Loans via Direct Loans. Despite AES having the check they continued to try and collect over $300 a month from me in student loans. After numerous phone calls to AES someone over there finally made the connection that they had received a check from Direct Loans paying off the balance and said I did not owe anything further. I thought it was over until I began getting threatening letters from AES stating I now owed an addition $78 claiming the pay off amount wasn’t enough to cover the balance. I fought with AES supervisors over the phone for weeks and finally conceded out of sheer stress and frustration to pay the remainder. I called AES again to confirm that if I paid the $78 I would not receive another bill for interest accrued or anything else. They not only agreed that would be the end it but emailed me this information as well. Last week I received another letter from AES saying I owed about $13.00 and a threat to report it to my credit saying my account is 56 days delinquent! Are you kidding me? I went to the online account and it shows I owe $95 dollars but my total student loans with AES are .13 cents. .13 CENTS! You do the math! What is wrong with these people? What is wrong with their billing system?! I feel they are holding me hostage with this nickel and diming because they continue to threaten my credit and I have no choice but to pay. Oh and here is the icing on the cake….I have been complaining to Direct Loans about AES and they sent an additional check to AES for the $78, that I had already paid. So not only did they get my money, they got paid again by Direct Loans and they are continuing to harass me over these new small balances that I DO NOT OWE!

My student loan was moved to AES after the company I originally borrowed from, Student Loan Xpress, went out of business. I was never informed of this change; I simply got a mass e-mail from AES about some new service they have, which of course I thought was spam and almost deleted. I did a little research and realized that, unfortunately for me, my loan had been moved to AES. I was able to create an account on their website, but there was no information about my loan whatsoever-- all the fields were blank. I waited a few days (this was weeks already after the loan had been moved), then e-mailed them, and then finally got a reply that said the information would be available soon. It was-- after about 2 or 3 weeks-- but did not include any payment history, nor the amount due each month and the date it would be due. I kept checking periodically, but under "Payment Due" it always said "$0, " and I could never find information about how much I was supposed to send and when. I finally e-mailed them after a couple of months of no information, and they sent me a rambling e-mail about how student loans work, with this gem at the end: "monthly statements may not list an amount due for that month but are reminders that there is a balance remaining on your loan."

It may be perfectly legal for a student loan company not to inform their customers about the amount due each month, but it is really, really shady. I have received absolutely no updates from them-- all the information I've received has come at my insistence. I hate to think how many AES borrowers have forgotten to make their payments and are just letting their loans sit there, accruing interest, while AES chuckles all the way to the bank.

Do not obtain a student loan through this company. The employees are all rude. If you are one hour late with a payment they start houding you with phone calls. I am on maternity leave and unemployed collecting no income and they refuse to defer my payments. The lady I spoke with on the phone screamed at me and threatened me with collection notices and phone calls if I miss one payment. This company is not worth the hassle or money. I would have rather worked at mcdonalds and saved money for college then taken a loan out with them. They are scam artists!

I consolidated my student loans through a company called ISM which sold my loans or was taken over by AES, not sure which. Once mine and my husbands loans were through AES it has been a living hell. First, I was eligible for interest rate discounts through ISM which AES said they would honor. The 2nd month they had my loans they sent me a letter saying I wasn't eligible for the discount because I was late. I had direct debit out of the account but had to make 1 payment by check during the change over. They said that was the payment that was late even though they had only given me 10 days notice that I would need to make a payment that month instead of direct debit. After filing an appeal & losing I sent a certified letter in writing. Finally, I received my discount back. Another issue, AES refuses to send me paper statements. They say because I have the direct debit they will not send me paper statements. So after 6 months w/ them I went online to check my balance, since I always pay extra I was expecting to see a dent. Boy was I surprised to see that I had paid off about $5.00 w/ my $295 a month payment! I again called and was told that anything extra I paid went to interest not the principal even though I'm on a standard repayment plan, no graduated plans, no interest only for the first 3 years, nothing. My original loan balance was $37, 000, it's going to take me 20 years to pay it back at $295 a month w/ an interest rate of 5.625%. Does this make sense to anyone? Fast forward 2 years. My husband's loans are now reaching the 24 months of on time payments mark. The month the interest rate was due to drop I received a letter in the mail saying we had not made our full payment last month so the interest rate deduction was gone. I looked at the bill, minimum payment due was $53, looked at my check book, I had paid $75. Called the company, they told me that if I looked at the spot on the bill where the different loans I had consolidated were broken up I would see that the amount due on each loan had gone up to equal $92 a month. When I asked why my bill wouldn't reflect this as the "amount due" I was told because I have the option to only pay interest, which was the $53 and I should always look at the amount due on each individual loan to ensure that I am paying the right amount if I want to keep my discounts. WHAT?! After another 6 months of phone calls, appeals, & certified letters I finally received the rate reduction back. It has been awful. I have been looking for another company but I'm finding that once you have consolidated once it's extremely hard to switch through another company. My advice, don't get a loan from AES ever!

I am a cosigner for my daughter's student loan. She decided to return to school to obtain her BSN. My daughter contacted AES and began the paperwork for defering her two loans. She had been in weekly contact with AES and was told not to worry about the August 2010 payment. I received a late notice and called AES myself and was again told not to worry about the payment. I have since discovered AES has reported the Aug 2010 payment 30 days late on my credit history and they refuse to correct this

So - I am one of the poor souls who must deal with aes. I took a private loan when starting medical school with "my rich uncle" managed by aes. I am now in clinical rotations. You know - the part where as a medical student, one works long hours with no pay - and apparently, aes does not believe that I am still a full time student. Funny - because my status definitely will not change for the full 4 years of doctoral work - and then there's residency to consider. I have insisted that my college financial aid office correspond with aes to resolve this issue - after many failed attempts of my own. However, I continue to be in "repayment." I have lost my low interest rate - and can't bear to look at my credit report - which until this incident - has been flawless. I guess that's one way to make sure they, the lender, get repayment priority - but it is in fact - an appalling dis-service. I wonder how many student borrower suicides can be traced back to aes? I won't be one - but there are those who would break under this pressure.

i have done everything in my power to assist these people in correcting the problems they have caused with my accounts. i have two loans each requiring a $25.00. i send them a check for $50. or more every month. they will post the entire amt. to one account and let the other become delinquet and will harass me to death until i spend 20 minutes or so pointing this out. then they proceede to blame me for not breaking my payment into two checks. by the way when i call their recording asks for my account number 'which is located in the upper right hand corner of AA american education correspondence', in fact it is in the LOWER LEFT hand corner and is couched by three other set of numbers none of which is identified as the account number. to address the payment issue i have asked them to send one bill showing both amounts due and/or to send my billing for both accounts on the same day . that didn't work...they just went on doing the same thing. then i put them on auto pay from my checking account. every one of these attempts to satisfy them has required numerous requests before they will actually move. the first month of autopay they sent me their monthly past due letter. thinking that it was still in the works i sent out a check. then they took out 2 payments each per account. they were authorized draws of $25.00 each but took $50.00 twice anyway. i am on social security and this activity nearly overdrew my account and left me seriously without funds for the remainder of the month. to get my money back i went to the bank and stopped pay on the next months payment only. the aes. spokesperson said that they would cancel their witholding for the following month [and of course didn't]. what actually happened...they stopped one withdrawal and took the other one. they have never reactivated their right to begin payment on the one account and we are back to one auto pay and one check per month. when i inquired about this they told me that their computer says that they attempted to draw and there was no money. as i over pay them as many months as not i can never understand why they continue to send me notices of late payments or not enough funds to cover my payment. i have never to my knowledge been current in their estimation. constantly though my payments are an even $25.00 i will get notices saying that i owe odd amounts. in the latest case i thought i was current and they told me i owed a payment of $34.00. they can never tell me why this is. without exaggeration i can state that over the years i have had to make monthly calls and that i have logged the equivelent of 2 full time work weeks addressing issues that they create. recently i asked for a payment history and found on it 3 instances where they have applied whole payments to interest with only a dollar going to principal and of course a dollar more for late fees! never in my life have i ever encountered any business entity that was as bad as these people. i have gotten plenty rough verbally with them over time and one of them even took to yelling at me telling me i was obligated to send two checks [one per account]. telling me that since there payments are credited by machine that my obligation to them was not met with one check for both accounts. anyone wishing to use these people to fund their college education is correct in the assumption that it will take a masters degree to figure out what they are doing and how much to pay. illicit drug sales or robbery would be less hazardous to a persons good name than dealing with these ignorant SOB's. exhaust ALL avenues of options before taking a loan with these people. seriously!

AES is reporting that I was 60 days delinquent on my student loan, but my account was supposed to have been in forbearance since July 12, 2010. On that day, I called all of my student loan lenders to request a financial hardship forbearance in light of the fact that I was about to go on bed rest until my twin daughters arrived. I requested these forbearances verbally in all cases, and they were all processed properly except this one. Instead of processing my request, the person that I spoke with at AES put in the system that I requested a forbearance form. When I received notification that I was 60 days past due in October, I immediately called to find out what had happened. The young lady that I spoke to on October 12 informed me that the previous person had processed a form request instead of a forbearance request. She processed my verbal request right then and there, retroactive to July 26, 2010. I then filed a dispute with the credit bureaus so that AES could remove the erroneous information, but they verified it instead. I called AES this morning to ask them to remove the information. I spoke with a supervisor named Donna, who told me that I was lying about having spoken to a representative because the system said that I had requested a form through the automated process. Even though she could not explain what possible sense it made that I would have gone through the automated system when I could have spoken to a person and processed the forbearance immediately, she became very loud and belligerent with me and refused to remove the information from my credit report.

I do understand that a forbearance does not remove any negative credit history, HOWEVER if the forbearance request that I originally submitted had been processed as I requested, the account would have never gone into negative status. I have been meticulous about improving and maintaining my credit. I worked past my obstetrician’s recommended time in order to have enough saved to pay my bills while I was not working. I have no reason to lie, nor did I have any reason to choose sending back a form when I could verbally request a forbearance. The fact that every other lender that I contacted that day put my accounts in forbearance supports my statement. American Education Services is refusing to own up to their error and they are more interested in damaging my credit than in customer satisfaction. I have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission to this effect.

I am very frustrated with this company. I did a federal consolidation of all my loans (including my AES loans) through Direct Loans. Last month, I recieved a bill from AES that said that all of my loans were paid off and that my remaining balance was $100 (left over interest). I made a payment on this amount and I finally thought I was done with this company. Then this week I received a bill from AES that says that I owe them $6, 000 and that I am 25 days late on my payment, so they added $30 of late fees to my bill. I quickly called them up on the phone, and after 20 minutes on the phone, the guy on the other line said "Oh yeah. It appears that we processed your payment towards the wrong loan. We will fix it in 3-5 days." They offered no apology and in the meantime, my credit has been negatively affected by something that I did not do. I have never been so horribly treated by a company before in my life.

I had a PLUS loan with American Education Services (AES) on which we were making quarterly interest payments while the loan was in forebearance (principal deferment until my son was out of college.) For some reason that was never explained to us, AES changed the invoice format on these quarterly interest payments to ones that had a big THIS IS NOT A BILL watermark across it and a $0.00 amount due in the invoice section. However, in very small font above the invoice section, it stated that you could make interest payments if you wanted to. Since I set up the loans, and my wife usually pays the bills, she just started filing these when they arrived in the mail thinking that they were some type of status statement. As these were quarterly payments, a year passed before I realized something wasn't right with the loan balance. The situation was even more confusing given the fact that we had another direct student loan in my son's name with AES in which the invoice format hadn't changed, and we had continued to make payments. I tried FOR OVER SIX MONTHS to get account information back from AES to determine the correct status of the PLUS loan, and each time I contacted them, they either gave me incorrect information or told me they would get back to me and then never did. This incompetence went on so long that the interest owed was re-capitalized into the loan principal, causing additional unwarranted interest owed. I paid the original loan principal and filed a civil suit against them for the unwarranted interest amount. They petitioned the court to have the suit transferred to Harrisburg knowing that it would be very difficult for me to represent myself 250 miles from my home. They were granted the petition, and I had to withdraw from the suit. The bottom line folks is that this company is both incompetent and unethical, and you should, at all costs, AVOID DOING BUSINESS WITH THEM!

My wife has a student loan that is serviced by American Educational Services. In late October we used our credit union's electronic "Bill Pay" service to submit our monthly payment on the loan. We accidentally authorized a payment much larger than what was owed. After the money had been transferred, we contacted AES to request that they 1) refund the whole amount, or 2) refund the difference between what was paid vs. what was owed on that particular monthly payment. The customer service staff indicated that they would probably refund the entire amount rather than calculate the difference. Today I received a curt letter from AES stating that no refund would be made. Do I have any recourse to force them to cough up the funds?

I took out my loan when I was in school (2005) They started charging me interest then! My real complain is... my minimum payment is around $240.00 a month. I always pay at least $50.00 a month more. Usually I pay $500.00 a month.

I owe more money than when I started. I've probably paid them over $15, 000 towards my college loans. Why is this happening to the people that are trying to contribute to our country?!? Shouldn't we be the one's getting "bail-outs"?

I know how people feel when they want to rob a bank... I've been working my butt off for 4 years now, and it's affected every aspect of my life. I can't go out, I can't eat properly, I can't be healthy because I'm spending every dime I have on these crooks.

I went to college and took out this loan so I could make a living one day. I'm only getting older and would like to own property, and live a simple life. Didn't our government take over student loans? Who's making money on us now? The banks or the government?

I hope something is done because my advice to everyone is... if you can't borrow the money from your family for college... Don't go. It's business PERIOD.