I am a very patient person, but there is no greater test of my patience than when someone says they prefer hard shell tacos and when I have to call Discover Student Loans.
The latter is a recent irritation in my life and one that I expect I will deal with a lot in the coming months. I went to one of those private colleges to get me a fancy shmancy liberal arts degree (which I still have yet to receive in the mail) funded largely with student loans. I told myself loans were simply a problem for Future Marcus. Well the future is now and it sucks.
Is it getting hot in here, or what?
My New Friends at Discover Student Loans
What I didn’t know at the time, was that I wasn’t just investing in my future career but also my future friends. You see, for the past month I have made several phone calls to Discover hoping to reduce my loan payments, tirelessly fighting their shoddy hotline, being transferred from department to department, and constantly assured that nobody there could actually help me. But perhaps the greatest nuisance in dealing with Discover Student Loans was the dreadful hold music with its acoustic guitar and shrieking saxophone solos.
Okay, dial it back Sax Man.
I’ve gotten to know the representatives very well and at some point had the depressing realization that I spent more time talking with them than my own family.
I’ve forgotten what my mother’s voice sounds like.
Back into the Fray
Discouraged and overwhelmed by the amount of “friendly reminder” emails telling me that my payment was due, I decided to call again one morning before work. After navigating through touch-tone menus and being interrogated by every representative on why I haven’t paid my bill yet, I final saw a glimmer of hope. I was transferred to another representative, we’ll call her Mother Teresa, and she was the first person in a handful of phone calls who offered me any viable solution.
Thank you, Mother Teresa. I love you with all of my hearts.
Her solution was simple: prove to us that you’re poor and we’ll reduce your payments. This is great. I am very poor. I could do this.
Anything for you, Mother Teresa.
In any case, my objective was clear: fill out their form and send them proof of income. The form asked for my cosigner’s signature. I acquired the signature and sent all the required documents to Discover that same day.
I didn’t hear back from them for a while. Unconvinced that their silence meant everything was peachy keen, I gave Discover another call after 7 days. After fifteen minutes of being tossed around from department to department, each one asking why I haven’t paid my bill yet, and enduring the awful hold music, the representative informed me that I was missing a signature on my form.
Impossible! I did everything. I pulled up the document on my computer and confirmed that everything was there. The representative then told me that I needed both cosigner signatures and that they emailed me earlier in the week explicitly saying so.
I scoured my inbox to find this elusive email that apparently asked me to resubmit the form. I didn’t find it. What I did find was a copy of the same exact email they sent me initially telling me to fill out the attached form. Apparently, resending the same exact generic email is Discover’s way of “explicitly” telling me I needed to resubmit the form with both cosigner’s signatures as soon as possible.
Can you spot the difference? Neither could I.
But wait. I looked at the attachment in the second email. It was the same form as before EXCEPT THIS TIME there were TWO spaces for the cosigner signature when the first form only had one. That’s right, they sent me a different form the second time, but expected me to have known that they required both cosigner signatures the first time. WHAT KIND OF ACTUAL TOM FOOLERY IS THIS?! THIS IS SOME SHADY BUSINESS DISCOVER AND I’M ON TO YOU!
Every part of this process felt like Discover is trying to scam me. Note the mysterious appearance of a second “Cosigner Signature” line in the second form they sent me.
There wasn’t enough time to freak out. I quickly filled out the form again, acquired both cosigner signatures and emailed my documents back to them. Then I called back to confirm that they received it. When the automated voice answered I pressed “0” right away to speak to a human, then knowing that the first human wouldn’t be able to help me I immediately said “Please transfer me to the payment people”. My conversation with the payment person went like this:
This is where it gets good.
“Hello sir, my name is Payment Person, how can I help you today?”
“I need to see if you’ve received my documents for a payment adjustment.”
“Okay, it says here you haven’t paid your bill. Can I ask why you are having trouble making payments?”
Ignoring the routine interrogation, I repeated, “I need to see if you’ve received my documents for payment adjustment.”
“Okay. Let me put you on hold.”
Who chose this song?
I listened to that infernal music for 3 minutes, my brow furrowed in frustration the entire time. If I held the phone away from my ear to avoid the music, I risked not hearing the payment person when he came back, so I suffered through it.
“Hello, sir? It looks like we don’t have it. Can you upload the documents through our website?”
“I tried doing that, I searched for the uploader for 30 minutes but your site is terribly designed. Can you tell me where to find it?”
“Oh. Uh. Okay hold on.”
“Please don’t put me on hold again.”
“Okay. Please bear with me for one moment.”
Cue blaring horns.
“Hi sir, thank you for holding.” He then gave me a series of instructions on how to navigate to the upload page. There was no way I ever would have found it on my own. I imagined I was on hold for so long because he was talking to his boss, asking if it was okay to divulge where the document uploader actually was and finally was given the okay as not to draw suspicion to their sinister schemes.
“Very well. Give the boy the information he seeks.”
I uploaded the documents but I wasn’t hanging up until I knew he’d received them. “Can you let me know if you got my stuff?” I asked.
“Yes, please hold.”
“Wait wait wait wait wait! Before you subject me to any more torture can you please turn off the hold music?!”
“I don’t have any way to do that, sir.”
“Please sir, I’m just a man!”
“Uh…well. I could just put you on mute?”
“Okay. Okay thank you.”
I sat in silence that was interrupted every few seconds with a high pitched beep. At least this was better than the hold music. As time passed, however, I began to have doubts that everything was going to work out for the best.
“Why am I on hold for so long? Who is Payment Person conspiring with? When he comes back, what new scheme will he have concocted to screw me over? When will this beeping end? Where am I? Who am I?! WHAT THE HEL-”
TOO MANY LAYERS!!!
“Hello. Thank you for holding. It looks like I received your documents and I am sending it over to be processed. This should take about ten business days. Please give us a call back in ten days.”
“Please give us a call back in ten days.”
“Please give us a call back in ten days.”
“Please give us a call back in ten days.”
“Sir?”
Silence.
“Sir?”
“What? Sorry. Understood.”
“Great. Is there anything else I can help you with.”
Weakly, “No.”
“Thank you for calling Discover Student Loans. Have a nice day.”
“You too, man.”
I hung up the phone and collapsed onto my bed victorious but defeated. I may have won this battle, but I had just over a week to prepare for what would hopefully be the final showdown. As I laid there staring at the ceiling I couldn’t help but hear the saxophone from the hold music blaring in my mind. Maybe they still won after all.
Fade to black. Roll credits.
Marcus Garrett is the creator of Top Shelf Gaming, an editorial website that seeks to use the power of video games to impact online and local communities. He enjoys playing guitar, taking naps, and eating tacos. His idea of a perfect day is one where he gets to do all three. Follow him on Twitter @marcus_media.
