file my complaint against Sallie Mae

I am writing in order to file my complaint against Sallie Mae on this 12th day of December 2012. I will attempt to describe my situation with this company to the best of my ability. About 6 years ago, I began attempting to attend college for Music Theory and Composition at the University of Akron. With this, I will admit, I took out too many loans in order to help with cost of school, books, supplies needed, and housing. School didn’t work out for me at the time and I had no way to pay my loans. Thankfully, 6 years later, I am now back in college for Graphic Design at Stark State College of Technology and am proud to be on the President’s List for all of my semesters thus far. I originally started getting my loans squared away with Sallie Mae and collection agencies when I first started back at my second attempt at school. I informed Sallie Mae that I was now attending college and that I would appreciate being put on “In School Deferment.” I also had to start paying one of the collection agencies that was handling a loan from Sallie Mae. Through them, I began paying the automatically withdrawal payment of $103 per month and $200 for at least 4 months of that. I paid on time for the allotted 10-month period required for rehabilitation. Through this process, I was in constant contact with Sallie Mae and my collection agencies in order to guarantee the possibility of being out of default for future needed student loans. Sallie Mae was always difficult, as I’d always get a different answer to the same inquiries about my payments and default. I was able to obtain a letter from Sallie Mae stating that I was no longer in default and was current on all loans. Recently, I was sent a collection notice from a loan that Sallie Mae sold. I called them immediately and asked as to why I received that if I am on “In School Deferment” and shouldn’t be required to pay. The response I received was that the automatic payments that I did not set up, rather they were set up for me, were too low and needed to be $148 this entire time. When I replied that I had not set this up, I was told, “We’ll fix that and make it $102 then, but we can’t take away any hits on your credit.” Considering I was never informed that my payments were too low by the company, especially since they set them up, I didn’t understand why that was the case. That is my first complaint. I need those inquiries removed by Sallie Mae from my credit report. A week or so later, I went online to make a payment and saw that I was still “Delinquent for 300+ days.” I called today to check on this situation and received yet another answer. I was told now that I have never been out of default and I needed to pay the loan in full since my payments were too low. There are many issues I have with this, but here are the main factors. I received the “rehabilitation of debt” and “non-default” notice only a few months ago, well within 300+ days. This was sent to my school as well, where they now have a copy and can offer me financial aid. I am also upset that a payment set up by someone handling my account is now affecting me negatively. I would also like to report that throughout all of my calls, I have never received the same answer to fix this situation. Once I do what I am instructed to, it is still unresolved and something new or different is needed to fix this issue. All of my conversations, including recent ones where the agent and myself stated that I didn’t set up those payments, they were set up by someone handling my account and were automatically withdrawn, have been recorded on their end. Best regards, Ryan Withrow