Consumer complaint received 2019-12-09
Company: Universal Account Servicing, LLC
State: FL
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Don't agree with the fees charged

Complaint:
I was misled by an educational counselor of XXXX XXXX XXXX -XXXX  ( XX/XX/XXXX) on behalf of Universal Account Servicing LLC ( UAS ) and signed the Credit Application/Retail Installment Credit Agreement of UAS without any explanation of the contract on XX/XX/XXXX. He used his aggressive and deceiving sale techniques to sell me their overpriced rip-off scam program. By the time the UAS contract was signed, he covered up all facts and misled me to sign the contract. In addition, the educational counselor of XXXX made a false monthly income of {$6800.00} for me on the contract. When I raised my concern about the false income, he ignored. The reality was if my actual monthly income and expenses were put on the application, it would not be approved because the monthly tuition payment of XXXX would greatly exceed what I can afford. The educational counselor also said to me that the date of my first tuition installment will be at the end of XX/XX/XXXXbut the actual due day of this payment notified by UAS was scheduled on XX/XX/XXXX. I sent an email to him and asked about the discrepancy of the payment dates but he didn't reply me either. If he represented UAS, why was the due day of the payment he told me so much different from the date UAS notified me. The UAS letting XXXX personnel on behalf of itself to mislead a customer to sign the UAS contract without any explanation about the contract was the irresponsible, deceiving and unacceptable business practice. 

I called the Universal Account Servicing LLC ( UAS ) on XX/XX/XXXX ( case # XXXX ), XX/XX/XXXX ( case # XXXX ), XX/XX/XXXX ( case # XXXX ), XX/XX/XXXX, respectively, and requested to cancel my account. But I was told that I had to contact XXXX XXXX XXXX   XXXX  ( XXXX ) to cancel my XXXX program account first. I told them the cancellation policy of the UAS credit contract on the item 18 of the page 7 says that You ( customers ) have the right to close your account to future purchase at any time. However, I could not close my UAS account and the UAS employees didn't tell me anything about what I need to know to proceed for the cancellation although I requested repeatedly. This entire process was covered up and not transparent at all. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I addressed my request and concerns of cancellation of my UAS account in writing to the UAS management/leadership team and its Costumer Help Desk. But until now almost two months have passed and I have not received any response from UAS regarding the cancellation of my account. On the other hand, I was told that my UAS account would be interest free for six months when I signed the UAS credit application with the XXXX education counselor on XX/XX/XXXX. But the reality is my UAS account has been charged with interests since the due day of the first tuition payment. As a matter of fact I have not attended the XXXX classes at all and therefore, there should be no tuition and interests being owed and billed by UAS. 

The UAS as a third party billing company banding together with XXXX XXXX XXXX have formed into a business gang for misleading and deceiving costumers for their gains. This should raise a high alert and concerns for costumer protection agencies. 

My experience with UAS has raised the following concerns : 1 ) Why  does UAS allow the personnel of XXXX XXXX XXXX ( another company ) on behalf of itself to mislead costumers? 
2 ) Does this person from XXXX have a proper qualification to assist a costumer to sign the UAS credit/financial contract? Does he have a knowledge of the contract? If yes, why didn't he explain the contract to me? 

The UAS has responsibility to let me, as a customer, know what I need to know about the whole cancellation process but should not try to cover it up. 
The cancellation of my UAS account should take effect from XX/XX/XXXX because on that day I requested to cancel my account ( case # XXXX ). In addition, the UAS should cancel all payments and related interests charged on my account because there were no tuition payments and interests owed by me as I have not attended the XXXX classes at all. The UAS contract says You ( costumers ) have the right to close your account to future purchase at any time and the UAS must follow its own cancellation policy. In the past I had canceled my auto-insurance, home insurance and credit cards and health insurance, etc., which were done just by a phone call. But why is the UAS business practice in terms of the cancellation so much different from its counterparts in the industry? We all as the citizens have an obligation to expose such deceiving business practice and any illegal operations. I also hope that complaints from costumers can help costumer protection agencies to take action against those misleading and deceiving business practices so that interest of costumers can be protected effectively. 

I have noticed that there are many online complaints about UAS. Below are listed a few such sites for your reference. 
XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX # XXXX I hope that with help of CFPB a resolution of this complaint can be settled.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation