I’m in a situation where I was threatened with a wage garnishment by a collection agency named Performant by the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority (NCSEAA). So I went to the loan originator called, My Great Lakes and paid all of the late payments and now is caught up in monthly payments.
Then I called Performant and the lady told me to either pay the whole balance or enroll in a repayment plan to stop wage garnishment. So I chose the repayment plan. After going through the process for a new repayment option, she asked me if I wanted to pay the first x amount of money today for the repayment plan. I was now confused. I told her that I already made two payments to My Great Lakes already and asked her if this is the same student loan. She gives me the total amount and I confirm on My Great Lakes account that it is the same amount so it must be the same loan. Then the lady told me that they(my great lakes) are a different entity and she has no idea what’s going on but she is collecting for NCSEAA and told me that I need to call the national loan locator to find out where my loan is attached to but other than that, I would have to pay my first payment by the end of May to get out of wage garnishment.
So after I hung up, I went to check my loans and the loans were under My Great Lakes on the government student loan locator site.
So my question is, who should I pay the originator or the collection agency? It feels like I’m paying for two of the same loan.