A MUST read for all those thinking of KEY ALTERNATIVE LOAN

FSIPILOT

Well-Known Member
I took a Key Alternative Loan from Key Bank to attend FlightSafety Academy in Jan of 2002. The loan was used for tuition and living expenses. My payments were due to start in Aug of 03, I made payments of $615 mo until Nov when my position was eliminated and thus left me unemployed. The terms of the loan when I signed and started were that of twelve months forbearance (forbearance: prolong payment while interest accrues) ... that was true until 01/01/04.

Key Bank took it upon its self to change the terms of the loan, the forbearance has changed from 12 months, to now only 6 months. That means... that over the life of the loan a course of 15 years, you can now only enact forbearance six times. That’s Key Bank trying to help you out. Not happy with this turn of events, I called Key Bank to see on what merit they made these changes after being call vectored all over the country, I finally was able to speak with something resembling a manager and their response was “read the fine print”. Unwilling to adhere to any level compassion for the initial terms of agreement, in plain English, I have now had 50% of the forbearance ripped out from under me. Avoid Key Bank,

Take what you want from this, if I was to again borrow this level of credit I would seek alternate means than Key Bank. Feel free to email me for additional information on this topic, ways of finding other means of funding, or general career advice.

Thank you for your time,

FSAPilot@aol.com
 
I'm not saying it is right with them giving you a 12 month forbearance, and then changing it to a 6-month, but I work for a mortgage company in loss mitigation. Forbearances are one of the many services I set up for my borrowers, and let me stress this with you, a forbearance or any other type of loss mitigation that the lender offers to you is a service, not something they are required to do. The bank has the right depending on the contract you sign to demand the full balance be paid in full as soon as you default(fall three months behind). That being said if you signed an agreement for a 12 month forbearance and have honored all of the terms of that forbearance, ie keeping up the payments required after that forbearance period, they are obligated to honor it. If nothing was in writing you did not have a contract for that 12 month forbearance plan. Hope this helps explain your problem, and I hope you can find work and get your finances back in order.
 
Don't just tell us (and when ya do, ONCE is enough--sheesh!), tell FSA as well--FSA needs financing to be available to their students and will likely be interested to know if Key is screwing their students over.
 
Took a Key Loan out as well Jan 2002. Once repayment has begun I can’t find any option in the contract to delay payments again. The only help I was aware of was that I would not have to start making payments for 6 months after I finished school.
 
Key provided the loans to hundreds of the ex-ATA guys. They will tentatively negotiate with you to knock off a maximum of 20% of the loan depending on where you were in the training assuming you sign an agreement to not sue them. 20% off of a $60,000+ loan when you never even arrived in Orlando let alone got any of their flight training isn't that appealing. For the guys that actually got to fly and get a rating or two, the discount is going to more like 1-4%.

Sallie Mae, on the other hand, forgave all loans given to students of ATA. Granted, the number of Sallie Mae students was much smaller ... maybe about a dozen compared to several hundred.
 
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Key provided the loans to hundreds of the ex-ATA guys. They will tentatively negotiate with you to knock off a maximum of 20% of the loan depending on where you were in the training assuming you sign an agreement to not sue them. 20% off of a $60,000+ loan when you never even arrived in Orlando let alone got any of their flight training isn't that appealing. For the guys that actually got to fly and get a rating or two, the discount is going to more like 1-4%.

Sallie Mae, on the other hand, forgave all loans given to students of ATA. Granted, the number of Sallie Mae students was much smaller ... maybe about a dozen compared to several hundred.

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Woohoo, what a deal for those who got NO training whatsoever for their 60+ grand. Are you a lawyer for Key???
 
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