Aspire Student Loan Servicing: Everything You Need To Know

Who Is Aspire Student Loan Servicing?

Aspire Student Loan Servicing, also known as Aspire Resources Inc. is one of the smaller federal student loan servicers and has a bit of a complicated history.

Aspire is a for-profit subsidiary of the nonprofit company Iowa Student Loan and services loans as Aspire Service Center. The company was contracted with to service Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL), as well as some private loans from other lenders.

Top Problems With Aspire Student Loan Servicing

Despite that aforementioned high customer service rating from the Department of Education, Aspire has not been immune to complaints.

We took a look at complaints posted in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau database, on the Better Business Bureau website, and other places around the web to get an idea of possible issues with Aspire loan servicing.

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Here are some issues that stood out:

1. Phantom Student Loan Balances

Paying off your student loans can be a thrilling experience. However, the excitement can dull when you think you’ve completely paid down your debt only to discover that somehow you still owe something.

An Aspire borrower experienced this precise situation. To be sure, the amount they still owed was quite small: they paid off their loan and then later logged into their Aspire student loans account to make sure nothing was wrong.

They found 5 dollars of unpaid interest there, somehow left over from the now-paid loan. Whatever the reason it was there, they had not been informed they still had that amount left. Had the borrower never looked, it would have sat there accumulating more interest until Aspire decided to let them know.

A similar incident occurred when one borrower paid off her loans and then reviewed her balance, surprised to find over 20 dollars still remaining. The balance sat there for several weeks accruing interest and the borrower kept getting billed for an even larger amount.

Eventually, according to Aspire’s response, the error was fixed and the account corrected. If you're concerned about your student loans affecting your credit score, read this.

2. Auto-Pay Agonies

Auto-pay can be a huge boon to both the borrower and servicer. For the borrower, auto-pay means they don’t have to remember each month to pay their loan, and it reduces the risk of being late with a payment.

Additionally, depending on the type of loan and the servicer, borrowers may get a discount on interest rates for enrolling in an auto-pay feature. For the servicer, auto-pay is as close to a guaranteed payment as they are likely to get.

But when auto-pay goes wrong, it can be frustrating to the borrower and antithetical to the reason it’s there in the first place: easy payment process.

One Aspire borrower describes in a complaint how they switched bank accounts and informed Aspire via the proper form to update their auto-pay. In the process of setting up the payments to the new bank account, that month’s payment was canceled, and the borrower was deemed to have missed a payment.

The borrower had not requested that cancellation and lost the interest rate reduction they had with Aspire at the time; the borrower felt it was unfair they were punished for a missed payment when they had not requested it.

3. Duplicate or Triplicate Payments

Getting overcharged on a payment is one thing. Getting your payment tripled is even worse. This happened to at least one Aspire borrower. And while the incident could have been a one-off error, it may have caused a lot of short-term distress for those affected. The borrower in question felt that Aspire’s handling of the situation left much to be desired.

The borrower logged into their checking account and saw that three loan payments had been taken out instead of one, sending them into overdraft. When the borrower called Aspire to resolve the issue, Aspire said they knew of the problem and were working to rectify it. When asked why they had not notified borrowers of the issue if they had known about it for several days, no answer was given.

The borrower also had to wait at least 5 days for the refund process to be completed. The borrower emphasized that they felt like the customer service reps did their jobs well, but the policy itself was outrageously burdensome on borrowers given that the error was made by Aspire.

Another borrower noted what might’ve been the same incident, except their account got charged double instead of triple. They also had to wait at least several days for the problem to be fixed, and while they reported being satisfied with the company’s response, it was distressing they had to go through it in the first place.

How to Contact Aspire Customer Service

You can reach Aspire customer service through the following:

Phone number: (800) 243-7552

Hours of operation: 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. CST Mon– Fri

General mailing address:

Aspire Servicing Center
P.O. Box 659705
West Des Moines, IA 50265-0970

Address for sending payments:

Aspire Servicing Center
P.O. Box 659701
West Des Moines, IA 50265-0970

Email/online contact form: Contact form

Read more about Aspire Loan Servicing here.

Looking For Help Beyond Aspire Loan Servicing?

Final Thoughts

If you’re a borrower with a strong credit score and income, you might want to consider refinancing your student loans. Depending on your loan balance, refinancing to a lower interest rate could save you tens of thousands of dollars in interest over the life of your loans. See our complete list of the best refinancing lenders.