Consumer complaint received 2024-03-21 00:00:00
Product: Debt collection — Private student loan debt
Issue: False statements or representation — Attempted to collect wrong amount
Company: SIMM Associates, Inc.
State: SC

Complaint narrative:
I initially got a XXXX loan from XXXX to go to XXXX to become a XXXX XXXX. When I was first applying for the loan I asked them verbatim if there was interest on the loan to which they responded there was none. A year later, I was unemployed for a time and during communications with one of the self proclaimed debt collector agencies/ default debtee that apparently held the loan instead of XXXX which was who I thought I was borrowing from called to see if I could make payments to them. I advised that I could not at the current time and since then they have called every day until recently where it started to slow down since I told them over the phone they were likely violating debt collection policies and that I would seek action against them for it. The current situation is that I called to ask how much the remaining debt was because I intended to pay the remaining balance in full, but I realized that the number I called was a secondary debt collection agency who also was calling me to collect a debt and I hadn't realized they were a different company until I actually spoke for a longer period of time on the phone with them. They gave me an amount that differed from the amount I was told by the first debtee / debt collector and gave me contact information for the first company to call them and get more information. I then called them back and during the ensuing conversation found out that my loan had apparently had interest day 1 and the XXXX company had no control over the loan and had just provided misinformation despite being the first point of contact with regards to getting the loan as if they had told me it had interest I would've never taken it. The summary of issues that I believe are a mixture of poor adherence to the guidelines of debt collection as well as bad communication. There were 2 self proclaimed debt collection agencies which when asked " are you a debt collector '' responded " yes '' who have been in contact with me constantly calling all the time from phone numbers all over the US including XXXX, I have been getting mixed information on the amount actually owed varying by about $ XXXX, and getting lied to initially about the interest on the loan which was what led me to not worry about it while unemployed mistakenly thinking I wouldn't have been accruing interest. I apologize for not having lots of hard evidence to give since most all of these interactions occurred over the phones but I suspect the companies involved have their calls logged to be compared. For reference the three companies involved are XXXX, simm Associates, XXXX XXXX. simm Associates and XXXX XXXX are the debt collectors in question. Also as an additional note in case this is also a violation, several times when I called simm Associates to ask if they were debt collectors they would not answer my questions until provided further information which seems sketchy to say the least.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation