Consumer complaint received 2024-11-26 00:00:00
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan — Problem lowering your monthly payments
Company: SLM CORPORATION
State: NC

Complaint narrative:
For years now I have been making my monthly payments on time and in full on the XXXX loans I have with Sallie Mae with no issues, until a few months ago I receive a letter saying that the specific " program '' that I was in that allowed my payments to be that amount was ending immediately and that my payments would be increasing. They increased the amounts so significantly that i am not able to afford the payments, so I immediately called them and spoke to a representative who said that there was absolutely nothing they could do to lower the payments and when I offered to continue paying what I have been paying on both of the loans, they said they were no longer able to offer me that option. We hung up without a resolution. I called back and spoke to yet another representative and they advised me that until my account becomes " severely past due '' that there are no other payment options available to me at this time. I told them that I could not afford the monthly payments and they advised me to cancel my monthly auto debit that I had set up for the payments and to let the account become past due and at that time someone would contact me and explain my options to me. So, I did as instructed and cancelled the auto payments for both loans. A representative did contact me when it became past due and they advised me that at this time there are no programs available to me to lower my payments and that I should continue to not make the payments and as it gets more and more past due that will open up more payment options to me. I again offered to continue paying what I was paying and was denied that request. We hung up without a resolution. As more time went by more calls started coming in from Sallie Mae representatives and each one of them said the same thing that right now there are no options available to me to lower my payments and that because the program I was on has ended that now in order to be eligible for any of the other programs that I would need to make XXXX consistent payments in full at the increased amounts and that after that I would be eligible for some of the programs to lower my payments. I asked them to look back at my payment history and they can see that I have been making payments monthly for years now and that should count for something, but they advised it does not and again we hung up with no resolution. The calls continue and each person I spoke to said the same thing that I should continue to not make the payments and keep calling them back each month to see if any of the payment programs have become available to me. I even asked to speak to a XXXX and they told me to do the same thing to keep calling back each month to see what options are available to me. I advised them that I do not want to have this hurt my credit and that I want to continue making the payments and pay back my debt owed to them, but that I can not afford the increased amounts but I can afford what I was paying and that I would continue to pay those amounts going forward and they advised that they can not accept partial payments and if I do not pay the full increased amounts that the payments would not count towards qualification for any programs. This is unfair to not be willing to accept some type of payment in an effort to keep this from hurting my XXXX XXXX. I do not know what to do as now we are coming up on 2 months of no payments and they report to the credit bureaus when the account is 60 days past due.

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