Recommended Options for Lump-Sum Repayment

Hello everyone.

I will have a little bit of a windfall inheritance from my grandmother passing away last year that I did not expect. So I will be using it to help pay off my student loans that total between $10-11k.

In the past, around 2014 and 2015 I used to call monthly to make my payments over the phone so I could use a credit card to repay – I was struggling quite a bit out of school like many but somehow always scraped up enough to even pay off the credit cards regularly. The only way to do this was over the phone by talking to a supervisor, and I did it for about 8 months over the course of a year.

I have called twice and Nelnet said that they do not, and never have done this (despite me having receipts saved in my email and still having the same credit card), but would not let me speak with a superior about this when I told them I had past receipts pulled up and had absolutely paid this way in the past. It just felt kind of "off" like they were treating it as if I wasn't supposed to know about it or something.

Anyways, my question is whether or not anyone has still been able to pay with an actual Credit Card (not debit) through Nelnet in the past couple of years. I understand that this is a niche, and generally highly un-recommended method, but the reason I strongly prefer this is because – without getting overly political – I believe that the DOE under this admin will be outsourcing the loans further than simply the Treasury at some point, and I do not want some kind of "lost in translation" error if the loans continuously move around or are sold off privately eventually. Using a CC gives me more consumer protection and a digital trail in case something goes wrong and just adds a layer of comfort if I'm able to do so.

If anyone else has any suggestions as well, I'd love to hear them… What documentation I should get and keep, what I should ask for, paying over the phone, vs digital check, vs anything else that leaves the trail, etc. I've heard a few horror stories regarding big payments like this in the past and just want to put as many layers of protection out there as possible.

Thank you!