New York NY: Dozens, possibly hundreds of current and former students are registering their complaints about the student loan management company ACS over a host of unfair business practices.
These practices have the potential to be financially ruinous to the students. They include wrongful accusations of defaulting on loans, resulting in ballooning interest, credit rating damage and late fees.
Other serious complaints include denial of loan payments resulting in ever-growing debt; allegations that payments are not made, despite customers having electronic records of having made those payments; non-issuance of loan statements with running balances on them; multiple late fees, even after payments have been processed; placing loans in prepayment status and not sending out monthly bills to customers, and allowing interest to accrue; retroactively assigning interest on alleged missed payments, in some cases over a period of several years; and increasing interest rates on Access loans, which ACS has recently taken over the administration of, without notifying customers, and allegedly in violation of the contracts those customers have signed with Access.
When customers attempt to contact ACS, many claim they are placed on hold repeatedly, for long periods of time and are not put through to anyone able to answer questions. Some complaints allege the receipt of threatening letters and phone calls relating to supposed loan defaults, late payments and interest charges.
Legal Help
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My student loan has not dropped for years. I have been payin this loan since 2002 and now continue to pay Nelenet. I believe this loan should have been paid off years ago.
Posted by Alex Giese
on
I don't recall the exact amount that I borrowed originally and it's hard for me to find all of my information since the servicing company switched hands so many times over the years. I graduated in 2010 and have been making payments since. I only remember borrowing a couple thousand for my last few semesters but at one point my balance reached over $21K and as of right now I still owe over $16K. Again, I don't ever recall taking out such a large amount. You'd think after 8 years of on time payments that my balance would have come down significantly, but instead this debt continues to grow. While my loan was with ACS, I tried to apply for PSLF and was denied into the program even though I applied for an income based repayment plan and I was working in public service with the State of Florida (and still am 6 years later). I ended up filing for bankruptcy back in 2014 which is around the same time ACS was handling my loan. I gave up on PSLF because ACS told me no when I tried getting into the program, but after talking to a coworker a few months ago, she said that the PSLF is retroactive (still not 100% sure if that’s true) but I also read somewhere that the PSLF would retroactively accept qualifying payments as long as employment could be verified. So I filled out my forms to verify my employment with the State and I reapplied to PSLF with my current loan servicer. The problem I face now is that the new servicing company only has payment history from 1 of the 5 or 6 past companies that handled my loans. So my qualifying payments are totaling at only 18 when I've been making payments for 8 years and 6 of those years were with a government employer. So I tried contacting all of my past loan servicers to get copies of my payment history and that’s when I found out that ACS had a class action lawsuit and after the lawsuit they were bought out by Conduent. I tried contacting Conduent, but their phone numbers on the contact us page have all been disconnected. I’m at a loss, this is a never ending battle that’s I’m probably not going to win. So here I am finally accepted into the PSLF except that about 4 and a half years of what should have been qualifying payments have literally vanished.
Posted by Kimberly Williams
on
I've been paying my Student loans since 2006. This is 2018. my loans started around 18,000. After all of these years of paying with ACS, I had it down to 13,000. They sold this account while I was in forebearence for 1 year due to a hardship with losing my job due to outsourcing to another country. Now I received a letter in the mail telling me that Conduent is handling my student loans and now the amount is 18,000! I created a log in and was able to see the balance but it doesn't allow me to see any of the payments that were previously made to ACS. It does show the balance owed which is not the REAL balance. there;s no way that the amount jumped that much within 6 mos of forebearance. Now I can't even log in, I used the new log in that I created a week ago with Conduent and now it won't let me log in. Too many attempts and now I'm locked out of my account. This is ridiculous. Really poor business practice! This is supposed to be a better option??? SMDH! FED UP!! HIGHWAY ROBBERY!
Posted by marta
on
I cannot log in to make a payment. When I get the website to open I have to create a new account and then it says I already exist. It a continual circle. Now I'm getting collector calls. ?
Posted by C
on
Filed for loan forgiveness numerous times. Each time they found something wrong even when other loan providers accepted it. The last time they mistakenly rejected it as I filled it out the exact way they told me to. I even asked the exact question that led to me filling it out this way. Then they shipped my loan to another copany. So I couldn't rectify it with them.
Posted by Mae Crabtree
on
ACS switched to another company, now I cannot log in to make my payment. I enter my info to get a new account and it says I already have one, but can't find me (?) and when I enter my SSN to get the username etc it says I am not in their system! I've been paying this loan since 2010 so how am I not in the system? I can't even find out now what I owe. One person told me that this new website does not use any browser other than IE, well I don't have IE. Now I owe late fees.
Posted by Mark King
on
ACS told me my loans would qualify for the PSLF. Now realizing after almost 10 years that i've made no progress and ACS doesn't qualify and only loans under FEDLOAN qualify.
Posted by mark Alan King
on
ACS had me under the impression that I could qualify for the (PSLF) Public Service Loan Foregiveness Program. After 9 of my ten years needed to be foregiven on my loans I found out my payments didnt qualify. Now I would be wrote off this month but only have less than a year toward loan foregiveness and looking to get into private sector. I stayed at my low paying local government employment to get my loans paid off. They wasted my time and money that went nowhere but their pocket.
Posted by ACS Lies
on
I spoke with ACS on 10/11/16. This agent put me on hold to supposedly speak with a supervisor after I asked why I received a letter of rejection for IBR. I am currently in IBR but they have not approved me for the correct IBR and have to pay $300, the standard IBR for people that get rejected. He came back to me and said what I've heard before, "we have made a mistake" He said that he had updated my account and the payment due is until June 2017. I was very skeptical because twice before I had to come up with $1200 to be allowed to restart the IBR process. I figured it would happened again. This is when I decided to give them a call again next day to verify my status. I spoke with another Rep. He said that my account shows that my next payment is due within days. I explained my case and he said that I was rejected for putting the wrong check mark. I remind you that this is my 3 time I send this IBR form each one of them with different checkmark selection. So no matter what I choose they will say this is wrong. I called the Ombudsman Office and let them know. I am currently waiting for an update on this. In the mean time, I sent another mail to ACS for approval. I believe ACS is trying to get me to become delinquent on this payment to say they can't help me until I pay the amount in full.
Posted by Hung CHu
on
ACS - Education Service is absolutely, undeniably a terrible company to serve student loans.!!!!!
Because of its lousy online payment system, i double clicked - and was over paid. I contacted ACS, and was greeted by a cold -unprofessional staff. She did not want to hear my end - All she referred to was " this is our policy" -
ACS charges me interest daily - it is absolutely absurd to hold my refund for 30 days - I deeply explained that extra $ is meant to put food on the table for my family- very basic needs. She would not want to listen.
I don't know how you would choose some one with cold - hearted , money sucking mentality, to work with.
I will try anything in my power to have my students stay away from this awful company.
I would hope someone out there listen to this.
Posted by WDH
on
I recently received a letter stating my loan through ACS entered default. I did not receive previous notices or letter warning my forbearance/ economic hardship had ended. When I attempt to contact the company, I am placed on hold constantly for extensive periods of time. When and if I do get through to speak to someone, they say they cannot help me and I do not qualify for an assistance. They refer me to the college I attended, were to date I have not been able to speak to the person ACS referred me to. I have left multiple messages requesting my call. I currently work for a non-profit and receive government assistance and there is no way I can pay the amount required if the loan is actually in default.
Posted by Anonymous
on
I was contacted by Sunshine documents in regards to Student Loan forgiveness. The company told me the I would have to pay them around $900 and in return they would have my loans forgiven. During the inital phone call I paid $250 via debit. That same day documents via web were sent and I signed and returned them. Weeks later I received an email advising me to contact them. I made several attempts to call but they could not be reached. Then nearly 7 months later I receive an email directing me to sign a power of attorney. I began to worry about preceding since ir had been so long and when I checked the statements I realized that payments had been cancelled and charge at time but I was not aware. I ended up cancelling the agencies services and asking for a refund. The refund took several days. I was given different numbers and they would just ring. Finally I was able to speak with someone but only receive one payment back. Also during this time I found out that Sunshine had done nothing with my debt and whats more I had gone into default for $33000. Now I cannot return to school and my credit is poor.
Posted by Texas
on
My students loans tripled when this company took them over. I owe over $35,000 on an original loan of $10,000. Talk about high interest rates. That is ridiculous. I could not pay it so I had to have it go into default. It was one student loan company then all of a sudden it was ACS who bought the loan. I was paying and they said I was not. Bad student loan company.
Posted by New York
on
I have paid 8,869.39 dollars to ACS since taking out a 26,093.83 loan in 1998. Today, my balance is 26,422.26 dollars. I believe that their original offer of a fixed interest rate of 3.875% was deceptive as I was lead to believe when I signed up with them that this was the interest rate on the whole life of the balance, meaning that the balance would only go up by 3.875% once interest had accrued. The actual numbers are in fact quite different. I believe they have used deceptive practices and taken advantage of my vulnerability struggling to make loan payments just out of school to get me to sign a contract, which was far more nuanced than was explained to me and which has resulted in over 100% of my payments essentially going to interest.
Posted by Arizona
on
Two of my student loans were sold to ACS. When I consolidated my student loans, I was then notified that the ACS loans were in default. I was in school at the time of the so-called default. I sent them paperwork, had my current school contact them and contacted FSA Ombudsman. I have a case with the ombudsman office but cannot get a call back for the status. This continues to plague my credit, caused me excess out-of-pocket school expenses and hinders me from further school attendance.
Posted by California
on
I was being placed on hold repeatedly for long periods of time and want straight to the answering machine rather than a live speaker. I notify them my address change to a customer representative over the phone but they keep mailing my payment to my old address causes me to not to receive my student loan payment on time . I didn't know what's going on until they send my loan to a defaults agency ASA . I was being charge with thousands of dollars on late payments and interest charges.
Posted by Maine
on
My student loan was transferred to ACS after an agreed 10 months of making $200.00 payments. I was assured that the payments would be substantially lower after the 19-month period. I kept my end of the bargain, however, they never reflected a tax refund payment that was approx. $4,600.00. They would not lower my payments to an affordable amount as I had been promised, so I had to ask for a deferment. I was told the payments would be about $50.00, but they want almost $190.00.
Posted by Nevada
on
ACS adjusted my int. rate which was FIXED. They refuse to adjust it. They will not tell me where $800. of my balance went. It went UP. They have not answered any of my correspondence. Most recently I sent to emails on their website and they told me in 2-3 days they would respond. Nothing.
Posted by Minnesota
on
I want to have my co-signers removed from the loan, I've made all the correct payments on time. It's impossible to get someone on the telephone line at ACS Education who knows anything or can help in any way. They consolidated 2 of my federal loans without asking or informing me.
Posted by Florida
on
I was not contacted by ACS until I was 4 months past due. I paid the 4 months I owed and the late fees, and ACS received and cashed the check from my bank and then told me the never received it. I had to fax them a copy of the check being cashed from my bank to fix this issue. Currently, I have been trying to make payments but they have no call center to speak with anyone in, and their website is constantly down. I made a payment ahead of schedule and I have yet to receive any confirmation from ACS.
Posted by Florida
on
They are refusing to cooperate with direct loan consolidation, towards consolidating my student loans. I've come across numerous complaints that are almost identical.
Posted by Texas
on
I've called ACS several times to resolve my student loan. They refuse to put my loan on default unless I pay $400. Regardless of the fact that I am unemployed and a single mom and was making payments to another student loan. I received a letter saying i need to contact them or they will file for garnishment. They refuse to work with me.
Posted by Wisconsin
on
I have applied for total and complete forgiveness 8 times and they
always find something wrong. Now they tell me that they can garnish my SSDI and SSI. I get a total of $801.00 every month.
I am suffering from increased anxiety from my bipolar disorder.
I am having depression also because it seems like there is no way out of this. If they can garnish my social security, I will become homeless and most certainly die. If what they say is true I may become suicidal as well. I don't know where to go for help.
Posted by New York
on
I have faxed over numerous time the necessary document, signed and dated in an effort to continue my deferment. Each month, I have a hit on my credit report showing that it is unpaid going over 120 days! I am left on hold or can't even get through sometimes.
Posted by Minnesota
on
My loan is going into default as i am trying to clean my credit to prepare to buy a home. I have and continue spending a considerable amount of time trying to get this resolved and still I don't know who to pay or not to pay.
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