About two weeks ago I wrote a diary about student lending that received a mixed reception. Here it is.
Barack Obama, our preseident, has made student lending one of his top priority and its an issue near and dear to me personally. So I was infuriated when I received the following piece of screed from Citibank, asking me to call congress and oppose the presidents reform efforts and "keep choice in lending." Which apparantly is the new astroturf name for preserving the government subsidization of bank profits, not higher education. Original letter form Citi posted below the foldwith my response.
BTW they sent this letter under the same format, and from the same address as if it was part of my loan process. They are using their customer lists to propagate their crap.
Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 03:39:55 +0000
From: student.loans@email.studentloan.com
To: XXXXXXXXX@hotmail.com
Subject: Citi: Learn about legislation that impacts you
If you're unable to see the message below, click here.
Add student.loans@email.studentloan.com to your address book to ensure delivery.
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May 7, 2009
Dear XXXXX XXXXX,
Thank you for the opportunity to help you obtain the education of your choice. As a student loan provider for the past 50 years, Citi has provided financial aid assistance to millions of students and parents nationwide.
Given the challenging economy and continued increases in the cost of higher education, it is critical that the U.S. student lending system serves the best interests of students and their families. If you believe that competition and choice among student loan providers is valuable, you have an opportunity to make your voice heard.
Why Get Involved?
The government budget outline proposes offering federal student loans solely through the federal government's Direct Lending Program starting July of next year. While this proposal will not impact a borrower's ability to obtain a federal student loan, it will eliminate your ability to choose a student loan provider. It will also substantially increase the national debt since each and every federally-insured student loan will be funded by the Federal Treasury through the issuance of treasury securities. This proposal impacts you as a citizen - both as a taxpayer and as a borrower.
Why Does Competition And Choice Matter?
Without private lender involvement through the Federal Family Education Loan Program, students and their families will not enjoy the benefits that competition has made possible for more than 40 years. This competition has provided not only a choice of lenders, but also innovative products and services, such as:
a variety of borrower benefits that lower your cost of borrowing
financial literacy programs that educate you on how to borrow responsibly
web-based tools and resources to advise you about your financing options
default prevention services to help you pay back your loans
Competition also has driven increased customer satisfaction as a result of the responsiveness, personal attention and on-campus support that student loan lenders have provided to borrowers and schools nationwide.
Make Your Voice Heard
If you value the ability to shop for, evaluate and choose your student loan provider, make your voice heard by contacting your Members of Congress and by signing one of the online petitions that support borrower choice and competition in federal student lending.
Sincerely,
The Student Loan Corporation
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ABOUT THIS MESSAGE:
For account specific inquiries, please do not reply to this e-mail. Log on to studentloan.com for secure account access or call 1-800-967-2400, Monday - Friday from 8 a.m. - 11 p.m. Eastern Time.
This e-mail has been sent to you from The Student Loan Corporation. If you no longer wish to receive e-mail messages from The Student Loan Corporation, you can click here to change your e-mail options.
Should you wish to contact us in writing, please mail your correspondence to:
The Student Loan Corporation
c/o Citibank (South Dakota), N.A.
P.O. Box 6191
Sioux Falls, SD 57117-6191
Concerned about privacy? See our Privacy Policy. Please note, we cannot process requests or gather information from individuals who are not at least 13 years of age.
©2009 The Student Loan Corporation.
The Student Loan Corporation is a subsidiary of Citibank, N.A.
Citi and Citi with Arc Design are registered service marks of Citigroup Inc.
2009.05_FFELP_Advocacy
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This was my response:
Dear Citi,
I don't want choice of lender for its own sake, I want the lowest possible interest rate. Under president Obama's new plan for student lending all that will happen is that you will lose the ability to disperse taxpayer money for profit.
The fact that your corporation has the gall to send an e-mail asking me to do your lobbying for your government subsidized profit is incredible to me. I am not your employee and I am not your agent. I am a customer-debtor, I took your money not because I was pleased with your website, your corporate headquarters or your television advertising. I took an educational loan from your corporation for one reason only, I needed the money and you offered the lowest interest rate. If the federal government had offered me the money at I lower interest rate I would have taken the loan from the government instead of you.
Now after you have received a debt in my name that I cannot possibly remove except by full payment of principle and interest, due to the lobbying efforts of you and your fellow bankers to change bankruptcy laws to make student debt non-dischargeable, you want me to call congress on your behalf, I belief that your corporation has misinterpreted our relationship. You want to maintain all of your subsidized profit after receiving $300 billion dollars last November in federal bailout funds, you probably want to keep making subprime junk loans as well. Well the times are changing right here, right now and you are no longer in charge.
I will continue my efforts to contact my representatives to encourage them to pass President Obama's student loan reform. Thank you for the list of representatives but I already have that information bookmarked in my web browser.
Furthermore, I'm formally requesting that you no longer send me any messages of this particular nature. Please continue to contact me with account information, payment schedules, deferment offers and other electronic mail appropriate to our business relationship. I however find your message requesting grassroots phone banking on my part personally offense.
Again I must reiterate please do not send me messages of this particular type ever again.
From an angered customer,
XXX XXXXX
The Unmitigated gall of these Assholes to try to make me a toll of their lobbying effort!
I'm so pissed that I will be forwarding this message to my member of congress and Senators, and telling them to again support President Obama's Student Loan Reforms. Please Do the same:
congress
Senate
Update Wow the Rec List First time for me. You know what we need, a restriction on the lobbying efforts of TARP. The 1st amendment is for people, not government subsidized megabanks.
Credit where its due Lib Stone's diary on the same spam from last thursday.