I have a student loan, actually a consolidated group of loans, that I've been making payments on for more than a decade. Throughout that period, I've always made the monthly payments and stayed on the company's good side.
However, something strange happened in February. I mailed them my check on Feb. 9, and according to my bank (US Bank), they cashed it on Feb. 19. However, next time I dialed into their (maybe I should call them XYZ Student Loan) automated system, the recording said my account was delinquent. I called to ask into this, and they said they'd never received the February payment.
I've now gone back and forth with them for weeks about this, and it seems to be at a standstill. They maintain that they never saw the check and that the only way for me to prove that I sent it and that they cashed it is to send them copies of the front and back of the canceled check.
However, everyone at my local bank tells me that that is impossible, because the loan company cashed the check through electronic transfer.
I am now constantly having to go back and forth between the two entities, and each of them acts like the other is completely ignorant. "What do they mean, they can't provide the copies? That's the only way to prove it!" "What do they mean, that's the only way? Don't they know what electronic transfers are?" And so on, with XYZ refusing to budge on their demand.
I have even gone down to my bank and arranged a conference call between the two. This led one XYZ representative to lead me to believe that *maybe* they could accept the trace number that the bank then provided as evidence of the electronic transaction. But my feeling, based on the many failed contacts I've already had with their phone answerers, is that they actually will continue to consider the check unreceived.
What can I do, when a loan company is insisting that they never received a check that my bank says they not only received but cashed? If they persist in this misunderstanding, it could damage my credit rating.