Consumer complaint received 2026-04-30 00:00:00
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: Central Research Inc
State: GA

Complaint narrative:
I am filing this complaint regarding the student loan serviced by CRI for myself, the borrower, XXXX XXXX. The account was reported 90 days late to the credit bureaus, causing mu credit score to drop from approximately XXXX to XXXX. This delinquency was caused entirely by CRI 's system errors and deceptive communication, and should be corrected. On XX/XX/2026, I set up automatic payments on XXXX separate loan accounts on the same day a personal loan through XXXX and this student loan through CRI both drawing from the same checking account ending in XXXX. The autopay through XXXX saved correctly and has processed without issue. It continues to work. The autopay through CRI seems to have not worked due to their system being faulty. The fact that autopay was successfully established on a different platform using the same bank account on the same day demonstrates that the error originated in CRI 's system. When these payments failed, CRI sent automated emails stating the auto debit was cancelled due to " insufficient funds. '' This was misleading. My checking account ending in XXXX had thousands of dollars available. Because I was told the issue was insufficient funds, I had no reason to believe the account information itself was wrong in CRI 's system, and therefore could not correct the actual problem. I continued to set up the payments to go out of the 3232 account in CRI 's system, since I knew there were sufficient funds. I contacted CRI 's customer service multiple times to resolve the issue. None of these representatives disclosed that the actual return reason was " No Bank Account/Unable to Locate Account '' meaning the account number in their system was incorrect. It was not until I reached a representative named XXXX XXXX via live chat on XX/XX/2026 that I was told the true reason for the payment failures. XXXX confirmed in writing that only XXXX payment returned for insufficient funds, and the other returned because the system could not locate the account indicating the number was entered incorrectly or the wrong account type was selected. This means CRI 's system either failed to save the autopay information I entered, or overwrote it with incorrect data. CRI then sent misleading automated communications that prevented me from identifying and correcting the real problem. CRI 's representatives failed to disclose the true cause across multiple contacts. As a result of these compounding failures, the account went 90 days past due and was reported to the credit bureaus, causing severe damage to the my credit. Which had ZERO missed payments and was almost XXXX. I am requesting that CRI : ( 1 ) submit a correction to all three credit bureaus removing the late payment reporting from the borrower 's credit file, as the delinquency resulted from CRI 's own system error and deceptive communication ; ( 2 ) review and correct its automated email notifications to accurately reflect return reasons rather than defaulting to misleading " insufficient funds '' language ; and ( 3 ) ensure its customer service representatives disclose accurate payment failure reasons upon first contact. I have retained screenshots of my live chat with representative XXXX XXXX documenting her acknowledgment of the incorrect return reason and the system 's conflicting account information. I am prepared to provide these upon request.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation