PAID IN FULL

So I'm out of town, checking my email on my phone, and I see "YOU MUST CONTACT SALLIE MAE IMMEDIATELY REGARDING YOUR LOAN" and I think - crap.

So I find a computer I can use, blow open the link, and spend like 45 minutes sorting out usernames and passwords - because all that info is at home. Eventually I get through the red tape and discover that the machine is telling me I haven't made my December payment. This is real distressing as I pay by a direct debit from a bank account, so if I haven't made the payment its because there is suddenly no money in the account.

At this point I swallow hard and figure that I'd lost track of something and that account is not what I remember. I click on the "make one time electronic payment" find the payment account and authorize the transfer.

And here's where it gets weird. It won't let me make the payment.

It seems that interest is calculated from the due date, but direct debit payments are made early in the cycle. Normally this doesn't matter, except that in this one case the 10-day payoff amount was less than my automatic payment amount. This kept generating an error essentially saying "you can't pay your regular $2 payment, you only owe $1."

So, I found the payoff amount and made the payment. I wish all accounting problems ended so well.