Nelnet
Reviews and Complaints

I got in contact with Nelnet. They asked me for my phone number so I did. Now I'm getting dozens and dozens of phone calls from strangers. Nelnet was the only one I have given my phone number to. Is this company a legitimate company? Did they get my info from the Dept. of Education? I don't even remember their address. They are taking my payment automatically from my bank account. I will appreciate any information you can give.

I have student loans that have been consolidated by Nelnet. I have been paying on them without the balance going down. I have tried different things like making payments twice a month. I was told that I am charged $13 a day in interest. My November payment was received November 4. $18 went to principal balance. My December payment was received December 2 and $83 went to principal balance. Since they were only 2 days apart, there should only be $26 difference, right? Some months had $0 go to principal and other months $100. There is no consistency. What is going on?

All my loans were dismissed because I am Totally Disabled. I have paper work showing a zero balance from Arizona Higher Education Loan Authority and Federal Student Aid. But on my Credit Report it shows the loans active..I have contacted Nelnet (which bought the loans last year).. WHAT A RUN AROUND YOU GET AND KNOW ONE HAS A CLUE WHAT IS GOING ON!... I also contacted ASA, ACS, SAME THING..
I even talked with two Supervisors SAME THING... I HAVE BEEN WAITING ON A CALL FOR 2 WEEKS FROM THE FINANCE REP... THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR OVER A MONTH!

My Complaint to Nelnet;

To whom it may concern,

I currently have a student with Nelnet. My original loan was taken out with Bank Of America. It was without my consent that this was sold to Nelnet. During this time I did not have the better career that my College had promised. It was for this reason that I was contacted by both a school representative and a Nelnet representative with repayment options. I was contacted on a three way phone call. I was offered a deferment. During this time I paid only the interest on my loan to keep it at bay. At this point my loan is in repayment and I am actively making payments monthly. Sometimes more than the required amount. Due to this deferment my credit report has 6 bad judgments on it. I was not told this would happen when I was offered this option by your company. In fact, I was blindsided when I attempted to refinance a car.
Currently, My credit score dropped over 100 points due to your judgments alone. This has impacted my life and my family's in severe ways. My wife and I are trying to now buy a house. It is imperative that I have these deferred/ late judgments be removed from my credit report. According to creditors It is your company that has to remove it. Please take appropriate action immediately.

I'm trying to pay off some loans and have 10 MVP (Most Valuable Payer) certificates worth a total of $750.00
(5 x $142.00 and 5 x $8.00) that I am trying to redeem because it is within 7 months of me paying off my loans. NelNet says they haven't received my MVP certificates, yet it has been 3 weeks. My loan payment is due October 1, 2013 and I really don't want to accrue any more interest. I spoke with Aaron on the phone (x23586) and he stated he could not give me his manager's extension to help solve the problem, he could only send me to voice mail of Trisha. At first he said he could not view the amount, put me on hold, then said he saw that I was awarded $750 worth of certificates. He stated they get lost in the mail all the time and to resend them certified after they reprint them for us. It would take 14 days to receive them and could take a while to process them. I am simply trying to get credit for the certificates they gave me and pay off my loan with cash. If I pay it off now, the statement says after three months, the certificates are not valid. If I leave $750 until they receive them, they may never receive them. I was told to send certified mail, however, you cannot send certified mail to a PO Box. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Unauthorized charge issue: I was ahead of the game on my payments, so before my trip to europe - I cancelled my auto - pay. I came home to find out a week after I cancelled... They changed policies and charged my account. They did not carry over what I had authorized on my account to their new policy, they also did not give 30 days notice - not even a weeks notice! I called to complain and the person said there was nothing they could do. I asked to speak to their boss, they said they didn't have one. I asked if they hired themself, they said no... Obviously... Long story short, I am going through the annoyance of having to dispute with my bank, which ended up giving me an over - draft fee because of this unauthorized charge. What a nightmare. This must be illegal!

Nelnet sent me a letter asking for payments on the loan of someone I do not know, but who shares my last name and first initial. I have recently gotten many debt collection phone calls and another letter for this individual. So, I called Nelnet and asked for my phone number and address to be deleted from the system, and I was told that was being done. In addition, I asked for contact information for the service that gave my phone number to Nelnet and that matched my phone number with my address. I want to call the service so I can stop it from giving out my information and so stop the harassment. Nelnet refused to give me any information about the service.

Nelnet will not accept wire transfers for loan payment. As an expatriate living in Europe Nelnet has gone out of its way to make it difficult to pay your student loan. Options are Money Orders, Check (real or electronic), and credit card with $15 fee. Given that money orders and checks don't exist in Europe because you pay everything as a direct electronic transfer, the only potential option is the expensive credit card option. This means every month you must call them, and pay over the phone. I have since consolidated with Sallie Mae and I can wire USD directly to them. Nelnet customer service actually told me that it isn't their fault that I moved to Europe and that I should wire the money to a friend or relative every month and have them write a check.

I am writing this to all the professionals with an outstanding graduate/undergraduate student loan. I am a responsible hard working professional paying my hefty ~$75, 000 graduate loan every month. I am finding out more and more that I am among hundred of thousands of people getting royally ripped by Nelnet. Originally I had a $4, 400 undergraduate loan before attending graduate school in 2009. Once I graduated in 2010 and was time to pay my graduate loan back ($60, 000) my outstanding loan amount had gone up to $70, 000. In 2011 Nelnet decided to take over my Direct Student Loan and stretch it out to a ten year term and consolidate it along with my graduate loan. My monthly payments are about $600 a month. I was just informed by a Nelnet rep that out of the $600, only 100 goes towards my principal on all the four group loans that I have (Group A - D) and the remaining goes to interest. In other words Nelnet is pocketing $6, 000 of my $7, 200 annual payments and applies only $1, 200 to my principal. I very much feel that the monthly payments that I am making is a huge waist since I have to pay this awful loan for the rest of my life. Nelnet is applying only $34 a month to my undergraduate loan. The breakdown is as follows: $14 principal $22 interest. Talking to a Nelnet Rep today, he was telling me that if you make an early payment then you make the following one on time, you are charged more interest because of the number of days gap between the payment.

I would really like to take a class action lawsuit against Nelnet for making a huge profit out of hardworking professional citizens of this country. I really feel that I am being majorly penalized for getting my higher education.

I've been paying back my student loans for several months. Last month, Nelnet submitted an automatic withdrawal to the wrong account. The account they withdrew from had not been in use for several years. Not only did they withdraw from the wrong account, but they also withdrew more than the amount due...after I had submitted the regular payment from my regular checking account. On June 2, I paid my monthly balance using my regular checking account. On June 4, Nelnet withdrew another payment (which was more than the original payment) from an old account that I have not used in years. The first customer service representative apologized, admitted she did not see the old account number in the system, and was as puzzled as me as to where the old account had come from. She checked several screens to find that "Oh, I see, it looks like Nelnet got this number from 2001. It does not look like it has been authorized in quite some time." She asked me to hold with the assurance that her boss would be able to handle the matter. Her boss immediately blamed me, claiming that I had authorized the account recently and that he didn't even understand why I was calling him, the bank should handle the charges. Luckily the bank had initiated the call and my banker was on the line the entire time, so he helped me fix the problem on their end. My new goal is to pay off Nelnet as soon as possible so that they get as few interest $ as possible. If I had known how unreliable they were, I would never have chosen them as a lender.

I have consistently opted out of third-party and affiliate marketing whenever I sign on to Nelnet for self-servicing. However now, as a condition of being able to even use the website, I can no longer choose to opt-out of third-party and affiliate marketing. Today, I received a phone-bot message for a limited-time special direct loan consolidation program, which pointed me to a non-nelnet website. Sounded suspicious. I called Nelnet to opt out (again) since they have removed that option in their new website, but they pointed me to a dead internet link that is no longer valid. The CSR then said she can put me on the do-not call list if I gave her my phone number. After a few minutes of conversation, I asked her to recite my phone number that I previously gave her, but she could not recall the number. So I accused her of giving me lip service and for being a liar. The CSR said, "I'm tired of arguing with you and I don't have to take this from you. I'm putting you through to a supervisor." After a 20 minute wait, I was patched to a supervisor who emailed me a PDF document that I have to sign and mail back in just to opt-out of marketing. Nelnet claims the marketing call I received is exempt from my opting out of third-party and affiliate marketing because it is from the US Department of Education. So I called the US Dept of Education and confirmed that this offer is from them, that is is a limited-time, and that it is legit. The US Dept of Edu says that although I have loans from ACS, Great Lakes, and Nelnet- if I choose to consolidate then all of my loans will be randomly assigned to 1 of 4 services, with Nelnet being one of them. No thank you. If student loan accounts are going to be treated like commodities, then I would rather pay off my small $4k balance with Nelnet than risk a 25% chance of being stuck with Nelnet for the next 20 years. I wish I had a choice as a consumer who I shall have a business relationship with, since I very deeply value good customer service and robust privacy policies.

Out of all the student loans I am currently in repayment of; the ones serviced by Nelnet are by far the most difficult and frustrating to deal with. Upon contacting Nelnet in order to reduce my monthly payment, I was informed that my application was accepted and that my loan amount due per month would be $272.29 for the first month and $286.90 going forward:

Dear [My Name],
Thank you for contacting Nelnet.
Your request for the extended standard repayment plan was approved and applied to your account. Your first monthly payment is due on 01/28/2012 in the amount of $272.29 and the remainder payments are in the amount of $286.90 starting 02/28/2012. The website will update on 01/27/2012.

Sincerely,
Kristin Babcock
Nelnet

Great! I was very excited considering I was paying $988.35 a month. On the 27th of January, I logged into my Nelnet account and issued my payment (even though the amount due had not updated to reflect the $272.29). Upon checking my Nelnet account the next day, I was told my account was past due by $716.06 ($988.35 (the original monthly loan amount that was supposed to be changed on 1/27 less my payment of $272.29).

Upon contacting Nelnet about A) the website not being updated (as they stated it would) and B) my past due balance; I was told:

Dear [My Name],
Thank you for contacting Nelnet.
Your account is scheduled for a monthly payment of $1, 043.89. Your account currently reflects 6 days past due in the amount of $716.06. You can go online to www.nelnet.com and click on “Manage My Account” to make a payment.

Sincerely,
Adam D.
Nelnet

$1, 042.89? Hmm. This is no where near the amount Kristin had told more; nor is it even the amount that's due on the website! Needless to say, at this point I was very confused. I wrote back to this message asking for explanation as to why my loan amount due each month was now more than when I originally applied for the lower payment/extended payment option. Even though my payment plan type had been changed on the website, my amount due is still the $988.35. Even as I write this complaint; the amount shown due each month does not reflect the amount stated by Kristin or by Adam.

I applied for lower payments on all my other students loans (as my cost of living has increased) and they were all resolved/reflected within 24 hours; loans serviced by Sallie Mae, Direct Loans, and my University directly.

Nelnet's customer service has done nothing but give me an absolute runaround in terms of my loans and has still be unable to provide me with accurate information on them. How can a company expect you to pay a loan properly if their own customer service can't even confirm how much I actually owe each month AND make it an amount that matches their website? Extremely frustrating; even after numerous e-mails, calls, and online chats.

Out of all the student loans I am currently in repayment of; the ones serviced by Nelnet are by far the most difficult and frustrating to deal with. Upon contacting Nelnet in order to reduce my monthly payment, I was informed that my application was accepted and that my loan amount due per month would be $272.29 for the first month and $286.90 going forward:

Dear [My Name],
Thank you for contacting Nelnet.
Your request for the extended standard repayment plan was approved and applied to your account. Your first monthly payment is due on 01/28/2012 in the amount of $272.29 and the remainder payments are in the amount of $286.90 starting 02/28/2012. The website will update on 01/27/2012.

Sincerely,
Kristin Babcock
Nelnet

Great! I was very excited considering I was paying $988.35 a month. On the 27th of January, I logged into my Nelnet account and issued my payment (even though the amount due had not updated to reflect the $272.29). Upon checking my Nelnet account the next day, I was told my account was past due by $716.06 ($988.35 (the original monthly loan amount that was supposed to be changed on 1/27 less my payment of $272.29).

Upon contacting Nelnet about A) the website not being updated (as they stated it would) and B) my past due balance; I was told:

Dear [My Name],
Thank you for contacting Nelnet.
Your account is scheduled for a monthly payment of $1, 043.89. Your account currently reflects 6 days past due in the amount of $716.06. You can go online to www.nelnet.com and click on “Manage My Account” to make a payment.

Sincerely,
Adam D.
Nelnet

$1, 042.89? Hmm. This is no where near the amount Kristin had told more; nor is it even the amount that's due on the website! Needless to say, at this point I was very confused. I wrote back to this message asking for explanation as to why my loan amount due each month was now more than when I originally applied for the lower payment/extended payment option. Even though my payment plan type had been changed on the website, my amount due is still the $988.35. Even as I write this complaint; the amount shown due each month does not reflect the amount stated by Kristin or by Adam.

I applied for lower payments on all my other students loans (as my cost of living has increased) and they were all resolved/reflected within 24 hours; loans serviced by Sallie Mae, Direct Loans, and my University directly.

Nelnet's customer service has done nothing but give me an absolute runaround in terms of my loans and has still be unable to provide me with accurate information on them. How can a company expect you to pay a loan properly if their own customer service can't even confirm how much I actually owe each month AND make it an amount that matches their website? Extremely frustrating; even after numerous e-mails, calls, and online chats.

I've been a Nelnet customer for about 6 years now, and of the 3 student lenders I deal with they are by far the worst. Here are the main problems I've run into with them:

1) The electronic payment system is very tricky to set up and and make changes to. I switched banks a couple years into my payments and tried to change the information on Nelnet's debiting system. I left a small reserve of money in the previous bank in case something went wrong and the debits didn't switch, but after 3 months and at least 5 attempts to switch the information (including both online and over the phone with customer service agents), Nelnet continued to withdraw money from the original bank account even after I canceled the automatic payments altogether, eventually overdrawing it AND charging me their own substantial fee in addition to the bank's overdraft fee. On top of this, I could only find out that the errant debits were taking place from the bank's website. I never received a single phone call, email, or even "secure message" on the website to tell me that my bank change request hadn't gone through.

2) The electronic payment system takes up to 60 days to register changes. Even when the system works and doesn't accidentally revert to outdated information. I'm pretty sure that if all the correspondence took place by pony express, it still wouldn't take 60 days for changes to go into effect. The only reason I can see for this is that they know their system sucks, and they want to give themselves a cushy 2-month padding of zero responsibility.

3) They sometimes refuse to use any other method of delivery than snail mail. I just discovered this problem in the last week. I needed some paperwork filled out by the lender and returned quickly, so I had it faxed to them, and they decided to mail it back. I spoke to several customer service agents and a supervisor, and they claim it's company policy (for privacy reasons?) only to mail certain kinds of forms. This wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't have the exact same forms faxed back to me from my two other lenders.

I suppose what it all comes down to is that the other lenders I've dealt with have been much better and easier to work with than Nelnet at every single turn. Each of the above problems did not occur with my other lenders, both of whom I've been using longer than Nelnet. Communication and interaction-wise, Nelnet appears to be stuck in the 1970s. If I could go back to when I was first making my decisions about who to take out grad school loans with, I would absolutely pick any other lender instead of Nelnet.

So I had a Wells Fargo student loan that was then bought out and now serviced by Nelnet.

I took a semester off and had to start repaying on some loans, which I understood well enough. They sent me out my statements, and since they were more than I could afford, I signed up for income-based repayment. It went through, and then I signed up for e-statements.

Now, I have been paying bills online for years through many different businesses. I know how to read statements, and I ALWAYS pay my bills on time.

A couple of weeks after my income-based repayment was approved and I was signed up for e-statements, I got an e-mail saying that my statement was ready and that I could log-in and read it under "my secure e-messages" on Nelnets website. I did this and saw that I owed about $6. I was shocked at how low it was, and I had more than enough to spare, so I paid about $30. I logged in a couple of days later to make sure I didn't have to pay anything else and nowhere I could see that I owed anything. The next month rolled around, and I received another e-mail saying that I have an e-statement ready. I logged in to Nelnet, and my statement said that I owed $0 and that $0 was late. I was confused, but I just gave it a couple more days and logged back in and I didn't have any new messages and the $0 due remained the same. So I didn't pay anything! I know that when I overpay for my car loan, the extra that I pay rolls over so I don't owe as much the next month, and that's what I thought had happened here.

A couple of weeks went by and I kept on getting calls form 1-888 numbers. I thought it was just my internet provider calling me again about trying to get me to buy cable, so I didn't answer them for a couple of days. When I did finally answer it, it was Nelnet. They told me that I was 60 days overdue and owed them $262.

Unfortunately, I did not have my computer in front of me at the time, and when I was telling the woman on the phone that I was receiving the statements saying I didn't owe anything, she thought that I was lying to her. She said it was impossible and that I owed them $262 and that I was overdue, and of course I was supposed to pay every month, even when I told her that it was saying that I didn't owe anything! I was infuriated. I started bawling because I never pay anything late. I told her that I would just pay it, and she said that she could put it in deferment. I told her no that I wanted to just pay it, and then she kept telling me she could put it in deferment. I didn't want to deplete my savings and I was really upset, so I agreed to it.

I then find out that they reported to a credit agency that I was deliquent, and that I was 180 past due on a loan. There was not even 90 days from when I got a statement in the mail saying I owed them anything from the time this happened. I found out they reported it to the credit agency because my credit card company decreased my credit line by $2000 because of something on my credit report.

Oh, and I found the place on Nelnet's website where it said that I owed them money. Even though their statements said nothing, which maybe I'm crazy, but if I statement says that I owe $0 and $0 in late payments, this leads me to believe that...oh I don't owe anything! Anyhow, although the statements in my "secure messages" said I didn't owe anything, when I clicked on "repayment options" and THEN onto "Pay now" (where by the way I would have gone if I were to have been lead to believe that I owed anything) that is where it finally said I owed them $262, but it didn't say where or why like a statement.

I tried calling them, and couldn't reach a human, so I e-mailed them explaining what had happened. I received an email and a letter in the mail. The letter in the mail showed that they took the mark off of my credit report, but did not say anything about it. In the email, they didn't say anything about the complaint I made about making their system actually work so if you owe anything, the statements should show it, or it should be received in an email. Just a harsh email back saying that I was late on making a payment.

Thinking about Nelnet makes me sick to my stomach for the hell that it has put me through.

I have been sitting on hold now for 35 minutes waiting to get through to Nelnet. Their harrasment started about 2 months ago, the fact that they were paid off 3 years ago for a loan that was not valid has not stopped them from robo calling us at all hours of the day. I thought it was illegal to call someone at 7:00am. Dealing with Nelnet was the worst experience of my life. Do not get involved with them they are liars and so vile, there are no words to describe them. Save yourself a lot of heartache and do not deal with Nelnet, they are ###.