I mentioned yesterday that my student loans were all going into repayment. Today things got more complex. When I looked at the payments for the first loan I realized that the amount going to interest and principal varied each month, even though the amount I was paying was the same. And not in an ok I understand they've amortized this kind of way, in a
Date Payment Amount Principal amount Interest amount
9/24/2008 $39.35 $19.08 $20.27
8/25/2008 $39.35 $17.62 $21.73
7/24/2008 $39.35 $18.87 $20.48
6/24/2008 $39.35 $20.13 $19.22
5/27/2008 $39.35 $16.6 $22.75
4/24/2008 $39.35 $10.31 $29.04
kind of way. Crazy, huh. So I'll need to talk to them in a couple days to find out what's going on with that. It might impact my decision on what to pay off. Also, I called today because the amount that was due today wasn't automatically missing from my bank account this morning and I just wanted to make sure they were going to take it out. Interestingly, they apparently had no intention of doing so. The form I signed asking them to automatically debit everything, to ENSURE that I would not miss a payment, they only treat as authorizing the payments due when the form is filled out. Since the loans that I magically need to start paying now weren't due then, they wouldn't be automatically debited.
This can be fixed with a verbal authorization (which my phone call counted as) but wouldn't be fixed in time for the payment that day, although they assured me it should go through within a couple days, and that they don't consider payments late until they are two weeks late, so there shouldn't be any associated fees. I will be checking the next couple days to make sure it goes through, and probably calling again in two days when it hasn't.
This would have been much, much simpler if I had just called the day I realized they were going into repayment just to check that everything would be fine. Hopefully there will be no lasting repercussions from this little episode.
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