Bankruptcy Questions Answered

What to do about student loan payments misdirected during Chapter 13 bankruptcy?

I made $3,000 in payments on my student loan during my Chapter 13 bankruptcy, but they were not applied to my loan balance. What should I do? I just had a chapter 13 bankruptcy discharged successfully after 3 years. When I filed chapter 13, the trustee told me to continue making payments on my student loan. I had been paying about $100/month to Sallie Mae. On finding I could no longer access my Sallie Mae account online, I called them to find out what they wanted me to do. The representative told me they couldn’t bill me since I was in bankruptcy, but gave me the address where I could send my payments, and told me to write my SS# on the checks so they’d know where to apply the payments. I made the payments every month by check, and they cashed them.

Last February I checked my credit reports and found they showed the loans had zero balance, with a claim filed with the government. I called Sallie Mae again to find out what my balance was. I spoke to a rep in India, and he told me it was paid in full. I sent a letter to Sallie Mae requesting an accounting of the activity on my account since the bankruptcy was filed, and stated that per their rep saying the loan was paid in full I would send no more payments until I received such documentation. I never received anything in return.

Last week I got a letter from Sallie Mae stating my payments were to resume now that the bankruptcy was over, as of October 5th. The total balance on the loan did not reflect any of the approximately $3,000 I had sent them during the bankruptcy! I called them, and after going through a guy in India, a rep in the US, and her supervisor, I was told they sold the loan to the guarantor (Connecticut Student Loan Foundation) as soon as the Ch. 13 was filed, and that I had been supposed to pay CSLF the whole time. She said they’d been forwarding the money on to CSLF. Now that the bankruptcy was over, CSLF had sold the loan back to Sallie Mae, but without reflecting any of the $3,000+ in payments I’d made. She said if I wanted to dispute the loan amount I would have to document the bankruptcy, all my payments, etc, and that if I didn’t make payment by Oct. 5 the payment would be reported to the CRAs as late.

I tried in good faith to make the payments I owed, I contacted Sallie Mae twice via phone and once via letter and they never mentioned that I shouldn’t be paying them, and I never received any communication from CSLF the whole time. She is supposed to mail me a summary of all the payments they received during the bankruptcy.

I don’t want to end up being charged interest on the amounts I already paid. I can’t afford an attorney. Was it legal for Sallie Mae to cash my checks during that time? Should I call or write CSLF? What should I do?