Consumer complaint received 2017-01-20
Product: Student loan — Non-federal student loan
Issue: Dealing with my lender or servicer — Received bad information about my loan
Company: SLM CORPORATION (SC)

I used Sallie Mae ( XXXX ) as a borrower for XXXX student loans. The first loan covered me from the XXXX school year and the second loan covered XXXX school year. Six months after graduation I was told my monthly loan payments were to total {$920.00}. I was unable to pay that ridiculous amount, which is when Sallie Mae then suggested I enroll in a 3 month forbearance period. In order to enroll it would cost {$50.00} per loan, and that {$50.00} would be credited to the interest of each loan. Once the three months were up I was able to re-enter a period of forbearance while paying the {$50.00} per loan. I was still unable to pay, and was unable to pay for about a year. Sallie Mae offered no alternative in order for me to pay an appropriate monthly cost. Sallie Mae continued to use forbearance as my only option to keep my loans in good standing. Upon entering almost a year of forbearance Sallie Mae notified me that I was no longer eligible to continue enrolling in forbearance. For several weeks I received phone calls everyday at extremely inconvenient times during the evening ( around XXXX ) regarding my loan status from numerous numbers and account managers. At that point, a Sallie Mae account manager suggested that I provide information regarding my financial standing in order to enroll in an income based repayment plan. Every account manager I spoke to provided different information regarding a potential repayment plan. It was rare that I was able to reach the same account manager more than once.I then stated that no one had ever suggested that to me prior to my year of extensive forbearance payments. The account manager made no direct response to that comment, but ensured me that I would now be eligible be to enter and income based repayment plan. I am currently enrolled in a repayment plan that costs me {$310.00} a month for the months of XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX, instead of {$920.00} a month. If that program had been offered to me previously I would not have accumulated so much additional interest/debt. At the current moment I am temporarily laid off from XXXX of my XXXX jobs which has changed my financial standing drastically. A day after receiving such news ( XXXX XXXX, XXXX ) I contacted my account manager notifying them of my change in income. Her response was " What do you want to do about it [ the account ]. '' I responded stating " The reason I 'm calling is to discover what my options are. '' She rudely responded that nothing could be done, and if my mother ( co-signer of XXXX loan ) would be willing to help with the payments ''. I feel that the employees of Sallie Mae/XXXX are extremely unprofessional and provide as little assistance with the the repayment processes as possible. As per Sallie Mae, every phone call is recorded which will provide verification of each statement made within this document of complaint. I also have not received any confirmation of payments made for any of the forbearance periods or for the {$310.00} I provided them on XXXX XXXX. It also seems that my documents on the Sallie Mae website regarding my times of forbearance have disappeared from my correspondence summary. Which is why I can not provide supporting documents regarding this complaint.