Many may have noticed a change in their student loan provider in the past few years, but one woman says the change has negatively impacted her credit.
In a viral video with over 1.5 million views, user Amanda the SLP (@theblackspeechie) explained how the government may be responsible for lowering her credit score.
@theblackspeechie they just make things up as they go cause no one asked you to do that and now it looks like i have 5-6 years of credit history #studentloans #credit #creditscore #creditage #debt #studentdebt ♬ Simple Life – Lexy Panterra
“So you are telling me that the United States federal government of financial aid whatever, whatever, decided to move my student loan from Great Lakes to Nelnet and then be like JK, we’re sticking with Great Lakes” she said in the clip.
Apparently, these switches reduces her years of credit history and in turn reduces her credit score. A couple of years ago, Great Lakes did announce that it would be transferring its entire portfolio of federal student loans to Nelnet. This transfer was not supposed to impact loan conditions, interest rate or any other aspect of the loan agreement, but it appears some are reporting otherwise.
“They just make things up as they go cause no one asked you to do that and now it looks like I have 5-6 years of credit history,” Amanda said.
The Daily Dot reached out to Amanda the SLP via TikTok comment and Nelnet via contact form.
The comments section exploded with users discussing the transfer of their own loans and Nelnet’s history of a loan servicer.
“Someone made a video stating that if you got moved to Nelnet, you may be able to apply to have your loans dismissed because of their past dealings,” one user commented.
“Can you say, we need a class action lawsuit?” another said.
Another accused Nelnet of changing the interest rate on their loan.
“Check your interest rate too!” one user advised. “I had a loan sold to Nelnet & my original loan was 1% interest. Didn’t know until YEARS later that nelnet changed it 12%.”
The government put loan repayments and interest on hold during the pandemic, however loan interest will resume in September of this year and payments will come due in October.