American Public University APU/American Military University/AMU Financial Aid Department full of liars and scammers Charles Town, West Virginia

 The financial aid department is truly terrible. There is no question about it. I've never had a single positive experience with them, and I would even say that they seem to be intentionally causing trouble to make using financial aid more difficult. To what end, I have no idea, since you would think they would want to make more money by encouraging people to use their financial aid and by making sure you have as little difficulty as possible doing so. But maybe they are really just as incompetent as they appear to be.

I actually stopped using financial aid because it was just more trouble than it was worth. However, even though I no longer receive financial aid, these jokers keep trying to cause problems for me anyway.

I sent them the following "Award" after theirt most recent attempt to contact me:

Dear APUS Financial Aid Department,

Once again, the Financial Aid Department at APUS has won the award for most incompetent department. I'm sure this is an honor you are most proud of, considering you have actively pursued it during every single year in which I've been enrolled as a student with this school system. The Appeals Department has given you some fierce competition in the past by never checking their emails, but you trump them every year by responding to every communication directed at you and doing so in a manner which only intensifies the rage felt for you by customers of this for-profit institution. Moreover, you also actively seek out students with whom your Department has no business and make every effort to enrage them as well.

This year's award is a special one however, as it demonstrates incompetence on numerous levels which may have before been thought impossible. Let us take a moment to note the immense accomplishments of the most recent "Notice" you have sent to me.

Firstly, The notice informs me that I'm now a less than full-time student. This is a blatant lie, as I'm currently enrolled in two courses and am already scheduled to begin another two courses immediately after that, which meets APUS requirements for full-time status. Other Departments here at APUS recognize this fact and even send verification of this fact to the Department of Veterans Affairs on my behalf. But not the Financial Aid Department. You know better!

Secondly, the notice indicates that I have a "Federal Student Loan obligation" which requires immediate action on my part. Nothing could be further from the truth, as I've never had a student loan of any type. However, making grand mistakes of this nature has been a running theme of the Financial Aid Department's efforts to win the Most Incompetent Department Award, as you have previously attempted to sign me up for loans I never asked for. Well done.

Thirdly, although your "notice" does contain a small error indicating that students who only receive Pell Grants or Tuition Assistance may ignore the notice, you are still covering your bases on incompetence here, since I don't receive a Pell Grant or Tuition Assistance either. There is literally no conceivable reason for your Department to be contacting me at all, and yet you have still made every effort to send me threatening and intimidating correspondence. This truly puts all other APUS Departments to shame and removes them from the running.

Truly, the very nature of this notice displays incompetence on levels that other APUS Departments can only dream of. Clearly, the Financial Aid Department makes no efforts of any sort to maintain accurate records on students, as you clearly do not track common facts such as enrollment status or even what type of financial aid the student happens to be receiving. And of course, if the financial aid department doesn't know what type of aid a student is receiving, one can only conclude that they must not be receiving it at all, as your department wouldn't know to send it to them! How I pity the poor fools who may actually be dependent on such aid! Furthermore, your department makes no effort to even avoid contacting students who may not even have any form of aid at all and even regularly continues to send harassing messages to students who have previously asked to never be contacted by the Financial Aid Department ever again. On top of everything else, it seems your Department fails to communicate effectively with other APUS Departments, fails to communicate with the federal government, and operates with no oversight of any kind from any APUS executive. If I didn't know better, I might think your entire department existed for the exclusive purpose of tormenting students and attempting to ruin the credibility of APUS as a whole. Again, well done.

So please allow me to be the first to congratulate the Financial Aid Department on this most esteemed award of Most Incompetent APUS Department. You have had some very stiff competition for this award, but you plunged ahead and overcame the odds to be the sole winner of this prodigious Award. If you can only forward me the email address where I may contact the person who handles formal complaints against your department, I'll be happy to forward notification of this award to him or her on your behalf.

Sincerely,
APUS Student and Enraged Customer