Sallie Mae and Collectors

[Aud1no]

I had 2 loans with Sallie Mae, one for 1200, and the other for about 16k. I've had trouble making regular payment on these, but when I did I sent enough to cover the monthly total of each loan. (about $200) 2 months ago I had to move suddenly due to a roommate fiasco, and missed 2 months payment. At the end of May, I started receiving cals from a collections agency saying that I had fallen into default status, and demanded the total of both loans upfront. After trying to get them to explain why I was in default, they claimed that Sallie Mae said that I had NEVER made a payment on the smaller loan. I tried explaining my financial situation, and they agreed to remove the defaults if I came up with 2k by the end of the month and $200 automatically taken from my checking acct on the 30th of each month. (enough to pay the entire small loan off in full, plus a few months payments on the larger one.)

While I'm still waiting to see the chargeoffs removed from my credit, I decided to check my account on Sallie Mae to see if this payment was reflected. The money was credited to my account, but then 2 weeks later additional payments averaging 1800 each were posted for three days straight - are these being made by the collections agency? Additionally, I looked at my payment history and lo an behold...all of the payments I had been making to cover both loans were in fact credited to both loans like I originally thought. According to my credit report, the last payment made was in mid-February, but they were both charged off in early March. I'm so livid right now that I have no idea who to contact about sorting this out, I feel like I've been tricked into throwing more money at these people than necessary, and my credit score has fallen 108 points in the last yer because of SM. (It's funny that the lady I spoke to at the CA said that SM is pretty much the only thing making my credit horrendous right now.) This is especially troubling because I live in Los Angeles and need to buy a car soon, and I also plan on moving into a new apartment with roommates to reduce living expenses by August. Both of which I'm sure are going to be very difficult with my score the way it is.

Anyone have any advice for next steps? Should I just continue to let the CA take monthly payments from me so I can get everyone out of my hair, or should I try to dispute it, and with who, since SM has handed off my accounts to them? I'm also still waiting to see the chargeoffs removed, the 2k payment we agreed on was posted on May 31 and the CA said it was up to SM to report it.

[drkaje]

Sallie-Mae's system likely applied all the payment to one loan or against a late fee. They used to mess up my payments all the time until DGF called and had them separate out the accounts. I had to call after every payment to make sure it was properly applied up to that point. I also had great difficulty getting them to apply anything extra sent in towards principle.

[Aud1no]

Looking back on it, that does make sense considering the amount of fees I've accumulated.

Another month has gone by, another $200 paid. Not only are the chargeoffs are still there, but they are still being shown as being owned by Sallie Mae. I can see that the amounts owed have decreased, and my score has gone up 47pts, though. Has anyone ever dealt with this kind of situation before?

[Aud1no]

Update: score dropped back down. After making a few phone calls and submitting a written request, they finally updated my acct. info on my cr, but it's reporting as a paid charge-off. This is not what I agreed to, and I've had to scramble to not only get that $2k to make the agreement in the first place, and the automatic monthly payments, which they still haven't updated as being paid. Does anyone know of a contact that I can deal with directly?