Consumer complaint received 2025-11-26 00:00:00
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: SLM CORPORATION
State: ME

Complaint narrative:
On XX/XX/year>, a payment for my student loan was scheduled to come out of my bank account automatically, as has been happening every month for several months. I was on a reduced payment plan because I developed a chronic illness and had been struggling to make the full payments. As part of this agreement, I was to pay {$230.00} a month, which I had been making faithfully on time since I started the plan, more than seven months prior. 

On the morning of XX/XX/year>, I received an alert from my bank that the auto debit had been marked as fraud and declined. I immediately called my bank and asked them to remove the fraud flag, which they did. I then noticed that Sallie Mae had also sent me an email informing me that my payment had not gone through. I replied to this email asking them to retry the payment, as I had spoken with my bank. Unsure of whether or not the email was an automated server, I then looked up their number to try to call them. On their website it said they were not open on Saturdays, so I made a note to call them on Monday first thing when they were open to make sure the payment had gone through. Because I work early on Mondays and they only opened at XXXX, I had to wait until after I got out of work to call them, which was around XXXX. 

When I called on Monday and explained the situation, I was told that my loan had already defaulted and that there was nothing they could do. I asked how this could be, as they were not even open over the weekend, and they said that because we were now in XXXX ( My payment was due by XX/XX/XXXX ), it was " too late to fix anything ''. Because I had " failed to make the payment '' before the end of the month ( my " attempt '' apparently did not count ), my loan was being sold. 

I asked to speak with someone higher up and the individual I spoke with said the same as the first. I told them I had sent an email to retry the payment, and they said this didnt matter. I asked how it was possible that they could penalize me like this, given they werent open on Saturdays to correct the problem. The agent then attempted to lie and say they were open on Saturdays and that this was clearly posted. When I told them I took screenshots of the website that clearly said they werent, they tried to backpedal and say they were open for special appointments, which I argued still wouldnt have mattered, given they would have had to have been made in advance and there was no way for me to know this was going to happen and also the knowledge of this was not made openly available to customers, so there was no way for me to know this. And either way, I called the number and did not get an answer on that day, so all of that would be irrelevant, given they did not answer the phone or call me back after I called and sent an email. I offered to send them screenshots of my bank account to prove that the money was in there and it didnt get declined because I couldnt pay, and they still said this didnt matter. After I spoke with them, I called my bank and explained the situation. My bank offered to speak with them on my behalf, but this didnt matter to Sallie Mae . I am very upset because my credit is now affected by this, and I can't afford to pay my entire loan balance, which is the predicament they put me in by selling my loan to a debt collector. 

When I spoke to my bank further about the issue, the agent I spoke with mentioned that the company had a high fraud rating in their system for some reason, indicating there was something about them causing the payments to have a higher chance of being flagged. A previous conversation with an agent from sallie mae seemed to indicate that the company was aware of the problem and choosing not to do anything about it. After some investigation online, I found that others had reported similar situations happening with sallie mae. The complete unwillingness to do something to revert my loan status when they clearly had the ability to ( I doubt the company actually had already sold my loan after just a day ) paired with my other findings leads me to believe that this trap might be intentional or at the very least an opportunistic thing the company regularly does to profit off of customers and get off with defaulting them early to sell off debt. 

( I also want to note that I wanted to make a complaint sooner but did not know this organization existed. I only knew of the XXXX XXXX XXXX and thought I couldnt make a complaint to them given the nature of this situation. ( I attempted to start a few weeks ago when I had called to get information about filing a complaint but was only able to get to it this week do to health issues I have been facing that had to take priority. ) ( Also, Id like to note that in the pic of the hours from the website I included, it does state payments can be made at any time using automated system- however, I did not know if my scheduled automatic payment was still pending and was going to be tried again. Often times with payment systems like this, if it doesnt go through the first time, they run it again one or two more times. This is how it works with many of my credit card lenders and has happened to me before. The last time this happened, I overdrafted and was charged {$60.00} in fees. Given my income situation, I could not afford to take this kind of a hit again. I also did not know if they would be able to refund me the second payment if it did go through twice, and could not afford to make a double payment with my other expenses. So that is why I waited to speak with someone, and I explained all of this to each Sallie Mae agent I spoke with. )

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