Can I apply for loans through Edfinancial services?

Edfinancial does not provide federal loans. It only acts as a servicer for Federal Loans. You can apply for more loans at the official federal student aid website.

Will I receive a monthly statement form Edfinancial Services?

Yes, you will. Edfinancial mails monthly statements approximately 20 days before your due date. If you do not want a paper bill, you also have the option to choose electronic billing. But if you have signed up for an automatic debit you will not receive a bill.

What is e-correspondence?

E-correspondence allows you to receive electronic communications regarding your account which will reduce the amount of paper correspondence you receive by conventional postal delivery services and save trees at the same time.

How do I request a change in a repayment plan?

Log in to 'manage my account' and select the 'payments' option. You can explore the various payment options available to you. You should also visit the 'forms page' to get a paper repayment change application.

EdFinancial Services Student Loan Reviews

EdFinancial services is a student loan servicer that was started in Knoxville and Tennessee to assist people with student loans. It was established in 1987 to work as a student loan servicer for the southeastern region. In 2012, they were granted to provide student loan contracts and since then they made Federal Loans Servicing their prime goal.

EdFinancial services student loans also offer services for private student loans. Though they mainly focus on federal student loans.

If you have federal student loans assigned to Edfinancial, their website offers many instructions and resources to enable you to perceive the knowledge to manage your student loans.

Table of contents

Edfinancial Services Student Loan Reviews
Student Loans serviced Edfinacial servicer
Repayment plans and loan forgiveness
EdFinancial payment methods

EdFinancial services student loan reviews

EdFinancial servicers have received 12,900 complaints in one year. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau usually receives these complaints from consumers.

Even the Better Business Bureau has received 34 complaints regarding the organization. Most of the complaints are related to their billing process.

It's not always EdFinancial's fault, sometimes it is the borrower's fault as well. In many cases, when a customer makes a complaint regarding having more payment balance than they borrowed but they don't calculate the interest accrued under deferment or forbearance.

Many borrowers also forget to update their billing address in case of changing their residence.

So, to dodge these types of problems you need to make sure your account details are up to date with your current phone number and mailing address. You should always be smart when you make a call to EdFinancial services by keeping the record of time, date, and the name of the representative you spoke with.

Pros

1 - Legitimate organization

EdFinancial is a legitimate organization. EdFinancial's website is easy to scroll and you will quickly find out resources that you need to understand and manage your loans.

2 - Student loan calculator

Their student loan calculator tool is quite handy for borrowers. Through that tool, you can find many repayment options. You can also analyze how much interest you will have to pay and what would be the repayment term for your loans.

3 - Military service benefits

If you have a military-based background and you have served the country then you have a whole separate page dedicated to you. They offer different benefits and repayment options for borrowers from a military background. You will be assigned a unique email address and customer service line.

4 - Lesser monthly payments

Since EdFinancial provides longer repayments your monthly payments will be reduced. So you can manage your finances accordingly.

5 - Managing payment efficiently

Without any application fee added, you can consolidate your loans with EdFinancial and manage your payment efficiently.

Cons

1 - Loan Transferring process complaints

Several borrowers have reported that EdFinancial has transferred their loan to a different servicer. They reported credit bureaus that the loans were delinquent loans transferred from EdFinancial to another servicer, and are being reported incorrectly.

There was another case where the borrower was in their in-school deferment period and their servicer was transferred. EdFinancial had reported the loan as delinquent. The new servicer received and accepted the loan and reported it as a current loan.

This type of complaint arises only when the company is not careful in reporting the forbearance and deferment loans.

2 - Slow Customer Service

What if abruptly you have a huge negative financial change in your life? It will raise your financial problems and it will affect your loan payments too. Fortunately, you have income-based repayment plans for this. Under EdFinancial student loan servicer, many borrowers have reported that due to bad customer service their application process for IBR has been quite slow.

3 - On the other hand excessive phone calls

EdFinancial services tend to frustrate borrowers by calling continuously if their loans have gone into default. In one of the cases, the borrower had gone delinquent on his loans and the company kept calling his Ex-spouse. After getting frustrated, she requested to be taken off the call list but they refused to do so and kept calling her.

4 - Problem with Loan Payments

There are some complaints related to loan payments for not getting charged properly on the principal loan amount. The principal amount is paid at the end after you pay all the outstanding fees and interest.

How to make complaints against EdFinancial?

You could start by filing a complaint with EdFinancial’s Customer Resolutions Unit if you are facing any difficulty while working with them.

Email: Email address

Despite doing this, if your issue remains unresolved, you could make complaints to the following:

You would do well to preserve records of conversations that you have, including the day, time, and information about the customer service representative that you spoke with. Also save copies of any letters, bills, or emails about your account.

How to settle disputes with EdFinancial?

You could approach the Federal Student Aid Ombudsman Group if a complaint fails to help. But this should only be used as a last resort. All the information on the Ombudsman Information Checklist before you contact them. You could use the following means to contact them:

Phone: 877-557-2575

By mail: U.S. Department of Education

FSA Ombudsman Group

P.O. Box 1843

Monticello, KY 42633

Student loans non-profits like The Institute of Student Loan Advisors could help you with free dispute resolution.

How to contact EdFinancial student loan servicer

Their contact number: 1-800-887-6130

They operate from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. ET from Monday to Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET on Fridays.

Address for loan payments:

U.S. Department of Education

P.O. Box 4830

Portland, OR 97208-4830

Address for general correspondence:

EdFinancial Services

P.O. Box 36008

Knoxville, TN 37930-6008

Email: Use the Email

The only drawback of getting a Federal student loan is that you don't have the right to choose your servicer. This is not good news for borrowers because if you face any problems with EdFinancial then you can't do anything. You have no options to change your servicer.

However, on the bright side, they have a good website and their representatives are always ready to help borrowers to find the best repayment options.

You should always keep a close eye on your accounts and credit report to be sure that payments are charged appropriately.

Student loans serviced by EdFinancial

9 servicers in the U.S. serve as student loan servicers, and one of them is EdFinancial student loan services. Just like other services, it handles Direct Student Loan programs which are the following.

Direct Unsubsidized Loans
Direct Subsidized Loans
Direct PLUS Loans
Direct Consolidation Loans

The unique factor about this servicer is that they handle loans within the Federal Family Education Loan Program.

They have also extended their services to private student loans.

If you face any issues with your private loans serviced by EdFinancial you can write to them at PrivateLoans@edfinancial.com,

or call them at 1-855-366-5755 which is a toll-free number. Note that their working hours are :

Monday – Thursday, 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m

Friday 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time

Repayment plans and loan forgiveness

Below are the repayment plans a borrower can enroll in. Various other ways of repayment of student loans are also given.

1 - Income-driven repayment plans

The income-driven repayment plan is carved to decrease your monthly payments on student loan debt. It reflects loan repayment amounts on the bases of your income, federal student loan debt, and family size.

If you apply for repayment plans, you may go with the process of forbearance which gives you time to get all the relevant documentation to determine your eligibility. Once you get an approval for income-driven repayment plan then your amount will be reduced and it will be valid for 12 months. This plan needs to be approved every 12 months.

a) Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE)

In this repayment program, your interest gets subsidized which will help you to control your loan balance.

They are flexible with the disbursement date there no restrictions on it with REPAYE. For undergraduate loans, your repayment should be made in 20 years, and for graduate loans, in 25 years.

By looking at your family size, income, and current federal debt, this program will lower down your monthly payments.

b) Income-Contingent Repayment

ICR generally permits borrowers to make their payments based on their income, family size, and current federal debt. 20% of their discretionary income will go towards the payment and they will have 12 years to repay the total amount if they use standard amortization based on their yearly gross income.

Once you have made monthly qualifying payments for 25 years, your remaining debt is eligible for forgiveness.

2 - Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)

After making 10 years of qualified payments, or 120 payments, the government tends to forgive the remaining loan amount if you're working in a non-profit or public sector. It is only available for federal student loans. Some of the professionals who can opt for this are nurses, teachers, and more.

3 - Discharge

In case of permanent disability, you might be granted a discharge under permanent disability discharge. There are several other kinds of loan discharge available for you such as closed school discharge if your school closes while you're studying there, are bankrupt, got involved in theft, and more.

4 - Forbearance or Deferment

If you can't pay your loans then there are other options to opt for such as Deferment or Forbearance. It allows you to take more time on your repayments by placing a temporary suspension on it.

Generally, Deferment is a good option than forbearance. You may ask why? It is because if you apply for deferment, you receive your Subsidized Loan, the interest on your loan will be taken care of by the federal government. The eligibility aspect for Deferment is based on in-school deferment, unemployment deferment, or income.

If you don't qualify for a deferment, you can go for forbearance. Under forbearance, any loan type will accrue interest daily. You may qualify for forbearance on hardship forbearance or your income or loan debt burden forbearance.

Repayment with Edfinancial

Source: pexels.com

EdFinancial payment methods

Once your application gets approved, the next step is to understand the different payment methods. You can make payments for EdFinancial services by the following methods.

By Phone

To make the payments for private loans, contact on 1-866-709-0202. For Direct loan payments, contact on the number given above for federal loans.

Online

When you register for your account you can make your one-time online payment at that point.

By mail

You can any day mail your payments by sending a check to the given address below.

U.S. Department of Education

P.O. Box 105193,

Atlanta, GA 30348-5193.

Automatic payments

You can sign up for automatic payments. For this, you will get the benefit of 0.25% on your interest rate. The payment will be deducted automatically from your account every month.

For other queries, you can contact them on -

EdFinancial address - 120 N Seven Oaks Dr, Knoxville, TN 37922