Sallie Mae Student Assistance Corporation Applies payments only to interest and not principal Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
My student loans started out at $62,000. I was paying between $400 and $700 a month since 2007. My outstanding balance has since increased to $77,000 despite the payments being more than the minimum required. When I called and asked about it they stated that any online or mailed payments in excess of the minimum are applied to future interest and not principal.
I started making payments by phone for an additional $5 per payment in $2009. Since then my principal balance has only continued to increase. I have not seen a drop in my outstanding balance at all and my final payoff date has kept extending from originally 2022 to 2047. At this rate I will be dead before I'm even close to the final payoff date and the outstanding balance will be pushing $500,000.
Why is this company not being investigated for fraudulent practices? They even handle the US Department of Education Loans. Which I also have and are not going down despite my increased payment amounts.
I have also watched my interest rates increase from 6.5% to 11.75% over the last 3 years. And these are fixed-rate loans that started at 4.5% in 2005.