Sallie Mae New Student Loans

I have a student loan with Sallie Mae, but it's currently on a deferred status. I wanted to talk to someone more about the status of my loan and when it will come due, because I don't want to be taken by surprise. There have been a lot of loopholes and changes with student loans over the past few years between political movements and COVID-19 relief. While I think I have an idea of what is going on, the more I think about it the more I won't feel better until I talk to a loan officer. 

Now, I'm very aware that Sallie Mae processes a large number of student loans on a revolving basis, so I expected the wait to be over an hour. In fact, I wasn't sure what I was in for, so it was a pleasant surprise to be done with the phone call in about ten minutes. The hardest part about the phone call was actually navigating the phone system because it didn't seem to understand me. It didn't seem to recognize anything that I said, but in the end that may have helped me get to a person faster. 

When I called, a recorded message greeted me that said, "Thank you for calling Sallie Mae. Calls may be monitored and recorded. As part of your experience with us, we will be accessing some of your personal information. Learn more by accessing our policy at Sallie Mae/legal/privacy.  In order to assist you, please tell me why you are calling today. You can say things like make a payment or status of an application." I replied, "Talk about making a payment," but the agent didn't understand and said, "Sorry, I didn’t understand you. You can say things like make a payment or status of an application."

I tried again, but varied my words thinking it would help. This time I said, "Talk to an agent about my account status," but that didn't work either. Instead, the automated system said, "Let’s try another way, which one best matches what you are calling about. You can say new loan, existing loan, or make a payment." I replied, "existing loan," and it asked, "Are you calling about a loan that has already had a disbursement?" After I confirmed, it requested that I enter my social security number, account number, or administrative ID. I gave my social security number, but that didn't seem to work for the system either. 

After half a minute of silence during which I thought maybe I got disconnected, it said, "I’m sorry we could not confirm your information. Please wait while we transfer your call." There was another long pause, and then the same voice said, "If you are calling about changing your due date, need information, or to check the status of an existing loan you can do all of that online. Please hold while I transfer you to customer care." Then there was just dead silence again. This was the weirdest part, but if you just hang in there someone will pick up. After that, the call went fast because the agent was able to answer my questions and walked me through what to expect.