adding insult to injury

I want my 3 dollars!

I’m a person who likes to keep his finances in order, payoff bills on time etcetera. Well I recently decided to consolidate my 2 student loans to cut on my interest costs and reduce the risk of missing a payment – because I set up automatic payment. I was approved for the consolidation, and informed the agency of my two payoff amounts. I thought all was taken care of – just sit back and wait for the one new bill to be withdrawn from my checking account. Apparently the payoff money hasn’t reached my lenders yet because I received a late payment letter in the mail for one of the loans.

Now, it’s only 7 days past due, and this is my first time missing a payment in three years; however, they informed 2 credit agencies and garnished my state tax return. The loan only has $2,000 left and the late payment fee is 3 freekin’ dollars, both I can live with. But to take my entire state tax return and report the delinquency to two credit companies? That just pissed me off. I was trying to pay the whole thing off for gods sake.

Why am I protecting them? It was SCSU. Don’t they have enough of my money?

Apparently, around tax time they do it for every late account regardless of how late it is. Ridiculous. I’ve called them and they are going to give me my money back (less this months loan payment), but I’m still mad about the policy. They had already flagged my account because of how close to my due date it was, and were expecting my call. They had the form already filled out to generate a check for me, but they wait until the student calls in and says WTF. Looks like they just try to get as much as they can. Vultures.