Consumer complaint received 2019-05-02
Company: SLM CORPORATION
State: NJ
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Private student loan
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan
Sub-issue: Can't get other flexible options for repaying your loan

Complaint:
Good afternoon, I am a cosigner on a loan for my little brother through the company Sallie Mae. When my brother first applied for a loan through this company he chose the wrong loan option. Instead of choosing to deffer the loan, or to pay a small interest fee of {$25.00}, he chose the in school interest repayment option. Not paying attention, I signed off on the loan because he told me that he had everything taken care of. So in the month of XXXX of XXXX I received a notice telling me that I had to pay Sallie Mae {$100.00} because of the plan we chose. I was confused and called to ask them if there was any other way to change the loan to a deffer loan and the representative on the other end told me there is nothing they can do and I have to pay this amount or else my loan will go into collections. So I explained to them that it will be hard for me to pay that amount of money because I am a dual major in college that works at target, and I have to pay for my school out of pocket ( which is about {$1500.00} a semester ), my rent ( because I can not afford to live on campus ), my car note, my car insurance, my utilities, school supplies ( like books and any other nursing lab expenses ), my phone bill ( which includes myself, my father, and my XXXX younger brothers ), and my brother is a XXXX in college with no job. However, because I was told there was no other option and I had to do this I agreed and told them that I will pay the {$100.00} a month. In XXXX of XXXX, I received another notice telling me that because the second half of the loan was sent out I had to pay {$200.00} a month now instead of the {$100.00}. I called the company multiple times and talked to multiple managers to see if there was anything I could to deffer the loan so that we would not have to pay while he was in school. All of the managers and representatives once again told me there is nothing they can do and that I had to make the payments. On XX/XX/XXXX, I called Sallie Mae because they called to tell me that my payment for XXXX was past due. I was aware it was because I was not able to afford the monthly payments. So when I talked to another representative he informed me that I could ask the school to send the money back to Sallie Mae and from there Sallie Mae could let me apply for a new loan so that we would not have to pay a monthly payment. This was the first time anyone has ever told me about this option because if I had known about it before the loan was ever sent out, back in XXXX, I would have applied for a new loan then. Unfortunately, now it is virtually impossible for me to get that money back from the school because it is finals week, the last week of the semester. So basically, I was forced to pay a monthly payment because I was told they could not do anything to help me and now I am being forced to pay {$200.00} a month until my brother gets out of school. Sallie Mae has lied to me for months and they now do not want to do anything about it!

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation