US Department of Education

I really hate the US Dept. of Ed. right now, specifically the direct loan servicing center. A few months ago, they apparently rolled out some new software and a new website for all of us to manage our accounts. They credited my account for the Oct. payment but never debited my bank account and I somehow managed to get removed from electronic debiting (could have happened when I changed bank accounts, but I thought I covered that). I called on Nov. 1 to find out why the payment hadn't come out of my account and was told that there were problems with the new system and that it should come out in 7-10 business days. I also got myself reenrolled in electronic debiting.

Yesterday was the 11th business day after that conversation and the money still had not been removed from my account. So, I called. The first time was during work and they were busy and I would have been on hold for over 6 minutes, so I decided to call back later. I called around 7 PM. After holding for 15 minutes, I got through to someone only to have my call get dropped. After another 15 minutes of holding, I got through and no dropped calls. My account will not be debited for the Oct. payment; in fact they are reversing that payment so I will need to pay online myself. Electronic debiting takes 30-45 days to set up and won't be set until December. This means Nov. will be paying online as well.

If there are so many problems with the new system, why was it rolled out? I thought IT people rigorously test these things before the public has to use it. This is absolutely ridiculous that I have had to go through all this trouble because the federal government decided in inflict a bug laden program on all of us with student loans. Of course, I am not the only one affected which is why I was on hold for so long. Why does it take 30-45 days to set up electronic debiting? Most financial institutions can do it in less than a week, usually only a day or two. Once again, another sign of bureaucratic inefficiency and my tax dollars being wasted.