Hello All,
Apologies in advance for the length, this story tured out to be alot longer
than I expected.
This is my tale of the experience I have had thus far with the Royal Bank
and the Government of Quebec Student loan ministry.
In 2000 I graduated in from university and set off to Asia, in part to pay
off my student loan by teaching English and also to pursure my studies in
Mandarin--which I had strarted in university.
The intention was to get a high paying English teaching job to pay down
the student loan and the credit card debt I has incurred to get to Asia . I
paid off the credit card with little hassle and started to work on my loan.
Shortly after beginning payments on the loan, I was offered a really good
job in Asia, that I though would be great expereince, and that I could sell
on the Canadian job market. The only hitch was that it was for alot less
money than I was making teaching.
I took the job, and started to make the minuim payments on my loan,
thinking that the skills I was learning would land me a better paying job
upon my return home and I could pay it off once I got back.
After leaving Asia, my partner and I would up taking a year and a half
detour to Australia as he had been offered a job. Part of the time I was
there, I had to apply for interest relief because my partner and I are
members of the same sex and regulations at the time did not allow for
me to work on his visa.
No great challenges up to this point, but here is where things start to go
downhill. I came back to Canada in the fall of 2004 as I needed to assist
my family out of a sticky situation. I picked up a job as a server upon my
return and figured it would only be a matter of time before I found
something where my skills would bring in a decent paycheck.
My interest relief period came to an end, and I made sure that the cash
was in my account to make my loan payment. On the day the payment
was due, the money came out of my account and then was re-deposited.
I called RBC to inquire what was going on and they said that my student
loan was showing a 0$ balance. I assured the representative with whom I
spoke that this was not the case and she said it is likely a computer glitch
and I would be contacted when it was resolved.
A little more than a year passes, problems on the family front resolved, I
moved to a new city to start a serious job search. Still no word from RBC
about my loan, despite a number of call to determine what is going on.
Then, the beginning of March this year someone called me from the bank
to say that there had been a technical problem with their software system
due to the Ministry of Education forcing them to make a software upgrade
of some sort (there was not a great deal of deatil given on the topic.)
This "glitch" had put me on interest relief for this period of time by
mistake and that my loan repayments would be starting in two weeks
time. I was still unemployed.
Having taken stock of my situation, I called the bank to ask if they could
delay my payment until I was approved for intertest relief. This was
something I had been able to do before when I was remitting my
payments from Asia. I was told that it was no longer possible to do this. I
was then told, by the very turse bank rep, that they had unsuccessfully
been trying to get in touch with me to arrange for repayment and that the
loan was about to go to collections.
This came as somewhat of a sock as my address and contact info had
been kept updated. So I asked her when they had tried to contact me--
on what dates specifically, what manner they had attempted to use and
who had tried to contact me. She was unable to answer. So I then asked
when they had started their attempt to contact me, as it seemd odd that
the loan would be off to collections without any notification by the post or
telephone. Again, she was unable to answer. She became increasingly
aggressive the more questions I asked. She then cut my questions off
and informed me that I would have to repay the interest that had accrued
over the period that I had mistakenly put on interest relief.
This seemed somewhat unfair as I was making a paltry sum waiting tables
and would have likely been on interest relief during that period. She said
that there was nothing she could do and that the amount would be tacked
on my loan. I then asked her how long interest relief applications took in
her experience and she said about six weeks. This is longer that usualy
aparantly, but the surly rep told me that there was a back-log in
application processing times due to the large number of applications they
were recieving--as a result of the "software glitch" mentioned earlier.
I then asked her what my options were for my present situation, and she
said she could reduce the monthly payment and extend the repayment
period to 15 years. Not ideal, but I went for it. I was also able to change
the payment day to the end of the month in the hopes that my interest
relief would be approved and I could put my mind at rest until I found
work.
The time for my payment approached, being totally broke, I borrowed the
amount for the payment, put it in my account and crossed my fingers that
my interest relief would come though before the payment came out.
Well, the payment did not come out. It was about 8 dollars short. I had
forgotten that my account fee would be coming out as well. I shored up
the amount already in the account and informed the Bank by phone that
they could remove my payment.
I then called the Ministry of Ed to find out what was going on with my
application (my online file with the Ministry showed that my application
had been recieved 5 weeks earlier). After speaking to two different
people, I was informed that because I had graduated more then 5 years
ago, I was no longer eligible for interest relief and that I would have to
call the bank to arrange something.
It seemed odd advice, since the Quebec government guarantees the loan,
so I aksed her if she was certain without a shadow of a doubt that this
was indeeed correct information. She put me on hold for about 5
minutes, came back and said that yes the information was correct.
So, I called the bank follow this up, and was informed that this was a
government sponsored program and that they were the ones who made
the rules about it, not the bank. So, the bank reps advice was to call up
the Ministry of Ed………I asked her if there was any information she could
give me that might help as I was at wits end and had no cash to make
payments. She told me I could, as a last resort, write the Ministry and
inform that I was unable to make payments. They would pay the bank off
and I could make payment arrangements with them. However, this would
reflect very badly on my credit dossier.
So here I am, stuck between a rock and a hard spot hoping I fnd work
within the next 3 weeks so I can make my next payment…… I feel that I
have acted in good faith and yet have been failed by the system. Not sure
where to go next…
|