Sallie Mae Must Be Investigated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Sallie Mae fails to meet consumer protection standards around accuracy, communication and substantiation. Sallie Mae follows their policy. Policy does not equal compliance with federal protection standards.

I have been paying off two Sallie Mae loans after my son attended undergrad college. When he graduated from grad school in May 2022, I called Sallie Mae and asked for a forbearance or a program for 6 months before beginning payments again. The Sallie Mae person said yes. In November, they discharged the loan. They never called me. When u learned from my siblings that they were calling about the loan- again not me- they said they had no record of my call. I had to pay $10k immediately and pay $1,000 per month for many months and I paid it off early. I am now trying to fight how this was handled and have it removed from my son’s credit file. They never provided how they came up with the amount to pay and the write-off. They have a customer advocate but she only speaks in soft yelling in a very stern voice. Her voice is like a Sallie Mae robot. There is no common sense. When U sent an email to the CEO, she scolded me because it’s her job to handle escalations. Except she is only a blocker for Sallie Mae- an advocate for Sallie Mae. The question is why would I have just stopped paying and then paid it off? It does not make sense. Why do you think I was taking 6 months off? They will not provide call logs. I need to file a subpoena to get them. Despite making all payments through my checking account and having initiated calls to Sallie Mae, they never called me about the seriousness of the loan’s status. But they called all my siblings about the loan! I was not the co-signer so they said they were not required to call me.

Sallie Mae makes it so easy to get loans and does everything it can to not help. I believe they have an incentive to discharge loans. As a private company paying taxes they write-off the “charge-off” and this offsets their taxes. They are the worst company to do business with- deceptive practices, misleading communication, and unfair treatment of consumers.