There's a long story about CIBC and my experience with them as well as my husband's. Highlights:
* He took two years of school and didn't finish - was asked to immediately begin repaying his loan, forget the grace period
* When he didn't send the monthly payment (his 'consolidation agreement' arrived 3 days before the end of the month he was supposed to start paying in) they took it from my CIBC account (I had let him cash his loan through that because our bank (TD Bank) said it would be faster that way . . .what a load of horse puckeys!
* Four times last year they took money out of my account even when I phoned, sent letters and faxes informing them it was not a joint account and that their action was illegal - I finally paid $40 to make a permanent stop-automatic-debit on my account
* I went through school for three years with no breaks, so the equivalent of 4 years in semesters, every single semester CIBC lost my paperwork, my money came on average 3 weeks late, and twice I had to go and resign paperwork already submitted just so I could EAT while going to school
* When my husband quit school, he was unemployed for six months and when he finally got a 'good' job (He made $13,000 last year) they said it was too much and my funding was reduced to nothing more than tuition
* Revenue Canada takes his tax refunds every year to pay off their portion of what he owes. . .the collection agencies would not deal with him and I think they even lost the five payments we sent via money order (have those slips still in the files) so finally he basically gave up
* At the end of June when I found they had not recieved a copy of my schedule 22A and wanted money in July (they called me 2 days before I was to write my final exam) I went to the bank, who lost the paperwork
* The bank then phoned me (I have it on tape) and said that since I couldn't prove I had been to the branch to submit my paperwork, I must be lying and it was past the deadline so I would get no grace period either
* I started raising the roof on things, emailed and faxed every number I could find, (I tried the Emerson fellow mentioned in another post) and recieved the following correspondances:
(edited so as to avoid their 'confidentiality' thing at the end of the email even though I know it really legally means nothing I do try to do the 'honorable' thing when I can)
Tammy at CIBC.com said they acknowledged receipt of my letter, including copies of my school transcript to prove that my end of study date was June 30 not December 30, also my copy of schedule 22A sent by fax, and apologizes for the frustration, my file will be investigated.
The NEXT email I got from them was along these lines:
Return Receipt, CIBC had recieved my message (July 24 for both)
AFTER that:
CIBC said they recieved my fax and apolgized for the frustration, they are trying to track down the bank teller who took my schedule 22A at the branch I left it. (July 28)
FOLLOWED by:
The bank recalls taking my copies of schedule 22A (also July 28, same person)
NEXT we have:
They are trying to use a document from National Student Loan Service Center because the branch copy I sent in to them via the branch, is missing the branch stamp. (August 6)
AND:
The government has to authorize the use of Schedule 22 in place of Schedule 22A that they lost. (August 11)
SO:
This one, in its entirety as it was devoid of the 'privacy message'
> Hello Yvonne,
>
> Thanks again for your patience during the course of my investigation.
>
> I am please to inform you that your schedule 22 has been accepted and
> your file has now been updated to reflect that.
>
> Trusting this is satisfactory,
>
> -Silvana
> CIBC Customer Care Centre
>
(August 13)
Ok, so apparantly I get my grace period until December.
What have we learned?
If you raise enough hell they CAN actually do things that they say they can't. . this may be of some use to those still in the fight. I hope mine's over for now, but I'm not holding my breath.
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