Add me to the list. My scored dropped 117 points. I can't wait to have Sallie Mae out of my life.

My husbands score dropped 30pts yesterday because of this reporting.  He called SM and they told him Technically it is reported correctly.  It is not reported correctly because it is an agreement that has been paid ONTIME every month since he graduated. It should say "paying as agreed".  It says borrower has requested lower payment which is NOT true.  So, he asked them what he can do and they told him he would need to be on  a fixed not graduated plan.  He changed and his payment went up $80 a month. We can afford it but how many cannot?   He woke up this morning just peeved at SM for this.  They're not reporting it correctly and they are reporting false statements on credit reports which are hurting people. 

I got the "technically correct" crap also, but it's not even vaguely correct. "Arrangements to make less than full payments" implies that one was delinquent on the account and was offered lower payments. That is far from what we did when we chose the Grad Choice option. We chose a repayment plan that was offered to everyone. They are making it look like we are all rehabbing our loans. Mortgage lenders offer interest only loans and don't report them as making less than full payments.

 

edited for spelling

They're saying it's "technically correct" to cover thier own...well you know.  If someone actually sues them over this, they'll want to be able to argue that it was reported correctly. 

If they are sued they'll use the bona fide error defense and probably win.

The question I have that is not clear is:  should I switch to level payments? (I had actually thought about doing it because I could afford to but never got around to making the phone call as you can't do it online and I tend to do things after hours).

 

If it does get fixed, will it happen again if I don't switch?

 

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.  It seems there are two views on this obviously but which is the better way to go?

 

Cindy

 

PS - I am not glad you are all having to deal with this but I am so glad I am not alone.  I totally freaked out Saturday morning.

Cindy - I switched back to the Level payment plan, but as luck would have it...I had applied for consolodation for all my private loans last week before this hit my credit and my loans will be transferred over to AES (they had better rates than Sallie Mae and I am so glad I will not have to deal with them after this).  I switched, rather than wait to see what happens because I figure if you are on their regular payment plan and paying each month....how can they add any type of negative comments?  Personally, I do not trust this company.  Even though they say they are fixing it...there is a chance that they will go back to this strange reporting of graduated loans and screw everyones credit again.  If you can afford it, switch to Level.  If not, just watch your credit like a hawk.  Or I if your scores are decent (for private loans)...consolodate with another lender.  AES only uses Transunion and when I applied they needed a score over 650 (I have mid 700's).  Of course they go off of income and all that other stuff to come up with your interest rate.  I want nothing to do with Sallie Mae and I am glad I do not have any of my federal loans through them.  If they do run another tape this week, I just want to make sure nothing at all comes up on my report from them that would hurt me.  I don't know if switching back to level is really the right thing to do...but it can't hurt me more than they have already hurt me this week by decreasing my score by 115 points.