On Hold with HESAA
I spent 1 hour, 22 minutes and 25 seconds on the phone with HESAA, the state loan institution for New Jersey, trying to figure out in what way my paperwork is incomplete.
Make what you will of the following information:
I have this email saved:
From: NJCLASS@hesaa.org
Subject: NJCLASS Loan Application Reference # : [REDACTED] - documents received
Date: August 19, 2008 12:45:59 PM EDT
We have received your NJCLASS loan application documents that you recently mailed to our office.
Thank you for choosing NJCLASS!
But the status message I get on their website says they’re still waiting for my documents, and the message on their phone system (after an epic number of busy signals) says my application is incomplete.
Useful information! … or not, so I get on the phone and fight through the busy signals and stay on hold for one hour and seven minutes and two glasses of wine and then …
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Yes, thank god! I’ve applied for a loan and I can’t figure out what’s incomplete about my documents. The phone system and the website won’t tell me.”
“We don’t seem to have any documents from you.”
“But I mailed them … a long time ago? And I have this message that says you got them!”
“Does the message say you were pre-approved? We send those out immediately.”
“No, I got that one July 12th. This is dated August 19th and says ‘We have received your documents that you recently mailed to our office.’”
“Let me go check.”
… 5 minutes later …
“I‘m going to give you to the supervisor, she’s got your file in hand.”
“She’s got my documents?!”
“No, but she has your file, she can break it down for you.”
“… ok.”
… 3 minutes later, a supervisor, with an accent I’m having some trouble deciphering:
“Hello? You’re Jay … Hatawa…”
“Jay Hathaway.”
“Yes. You need to check with the department.”
“Check with the department? What does that even mean?”
“What is your telephone number? We’ll get back to you … in time.”
“So YOU’RE going to check with the department?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, here’s my number. This is very important.”
“I understand, sir. You’ll hear from us in a few minutes. Later today.”
Half an hour Forty minutes later, I’m writing this. Will I ever get this loan?
UPDATE: During this phone nightmare, I tried to contact HESAA by email. I got a response!
From: client_services@hesaa.org
Subject: Your email ‘NJCLASS loan status: [REDACTED]’ is accepted. [ConversationID: 7e2d14c2-5f7a-435f-a127-f812677c15e0]
Date: August 28, 2008 12:45:10 PM EDTThank you for contacting the NJ Higher Education Student Assistance Authority. We will answer your e-mail promptly, in the order in which it was received. You can expect to hear from us within 24 hours on the next business day.
… oh. How helpful!
UPDATE #2: It’s now been almost 2 hours since I was supposed to get a call “in a few minutes, later today.” In the meantime, I thought it might be worth pointing out that I went through a lot to actually print the documents in question here. The eventual solution was to print them from my girlfriend’s office, where they have a Windows machine as old as the HESAA website.
UPDATE #3: We’re past the close of business for the day, and I’ve heard nothing. I tried calling a couple more times, but I gave up after too many busy signals.
