Just wanted to comment on my student loan consolidation experience... I just finished consolidating with UHEAA (for the majority of my loans) and I have to say that I am very happy with their service. They are prompt and quick. Very professional. ON THE OTHER HAND, I do not recommend Citi nor AES for consolidation. As soon as they found out that I am consolidating with someone else, AES called me desperately and said "we can beat any lender's incentives." Don't believe it. They are deceitful, slow, lazy and give out blantantly wrong information to mislead you. NEVER EVER let AES "fill out" your loan information for you to "just sign and mail it in." They INFLATE your interest rates on your existing loans!!! And I thought only the used car dealers did that. Plus, they will refuse to send out Loan Verification Form to your consolidating lender, claiming that I changed my mind and consolidating with AES. This is after I had just told them to send me their offer in writing for a "no obligation offer." As for Citi, the reps are completely CLUELESS about consolidation rules and regulation. One rep insisted that only they could offer the "locked in rate" where as other lenders would back out in a few years. LOL I just hung up on her. Just wanted to vent. Thanks for reading.

I am seriously thinking of consolidating with UHEAA. They are claiming a 1.25% deduction with auto-payment, which is awesome, and being on time for 48 months decreased the rate by another 1%. One question though, are there any hidden fees anywhere? Like origination or anything like that?

Edit:
Nevermind, no fees whatsoever for federal loan consolidations.


I think I'm gonna go with these folks. If anyone wants to warn me about anything, please do so now!

I did. they were in fact just waiting til my grace period ended.

I told em to move forward, their customer service is pretty good

just completed my application with uheaa and have been happy so far. i used the loophole described in rathipon's single lender thread to get out of my sallie mae loans. it took about a month for them to get my loans over from the doe. their customer service is always friendly and knowledgable. you can also access all your loan info online. they also have an income sensitive repayment plan in which you start out with much lower monthly repayment rates. the good part is that these lower payments still count towards the number of payments you must make before getting the additional 1% reduction after 48 payments. i believe someone else posted that you can make double payments each month and end up with the 48 payments in half the time so combining this method with the income sensitive repayment may be a cheaper way to get the lower interest rate faster. i just sent in my auto debit and income sensitive repayment requests today so we'll see what happens.

I checked out Direct Load servecing (https://www.dlssonline.com/), Found out there are rebates which I need to make first 12 required monthly payments on time to get it back, if I Consolidate Loans with UHEAA, will I get the rebate back?

http://www.uheaa.org/forms.htm

http://www.uheaa.org/consolidationloanapp.pdf

Here is your answer about your credit rating and consolidation...

Linky Link

fatbelly said:Ok, I started this post, so I think I should give an update of what has happened since my original note.

I have just now completed consolidating all my loans with UHEAA. I have to say, I am completely satisfied with the experience. I consolidated 8 loans with my original application, and added one more loan after the original consolidation. Everything went very smoothly.

I signed up for auto debit from my checking account which was a simple form to fill out. I had to make my first payment online because there is a lag between my first payment, and when the auto debit form was submitted.

I chose the select 5 repayment plan so I could make double payments and get to the 48 month bonus twice as fast. I confirmed with UHEAA that extra payments were treated as monthly payments.

The website is easy to use, and you can get all the info on your loan on the site. The hold times when calling the customer service line is also very good. As usual, I don't stay on hold for any longer than a couple of minutes. Usually they pick up right away.

Thanks for all the replies to this post. Hopefully some people got the info they needed about UHEAA.

Good luck all, time is running out!!

I concur with all of the above!

I just wanted to give everybody my personal experience with UHEAA. I have been more than happy with the consolidation process with them. I just finished consolidating my loans with the two step process. The only holdup was Sallie Mae relinquishing the loans I had with them. UHEAA had to send them two letters before they responded. UHEAA's customer service had been great, very nice CSR's and short hold times. When they finished the second step of the consolidation, they didn't change my repayment terms making it $750/mo! I called them up yesterday and they corrected the mistake right away. Their online system is nice; you can see your loan amount, remaining balance, how much applied to principle, how much applied to interest, current interest rate, next payment due. You can make online payments now ( so no excuses for late payments). The website even shows you how much progress you are making toward the extra 1% 48 payment interest reduction for those people worried about that. Good luck to everyone .

Dave

fatbelly said:Here is your answer about your credit rating and consolidation...

Linky Link

This link doesn't appear to be correct

I also had the same question and read that entire page hoping for an answer

LOL