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Hello, I'm new here and I hope I'm posting in the right section. I graduated college in 2009 and starting making payments like normal after 6 months on my private loan through Sallie Mae. I paid $280 every month until I lost my job in May 2012 and was found ineligible to collect unemployment compensation. It took me about 6 months to find a new job. During my period of unemployment, I could not pay Sallie anything whatsoever. I was living on my savings only. I'm so glad I was able to find a new job in December. Shortly after I lost my job in May '12, Sallie Mae upped my monthly payments to $480 a month. I couldn't afford to pay them a dime. They would not negotiate a thing with me whatsoever. Then the repetitive, harassing phone calls began around September, while I was still unemployed. When I got a job in December, I was planning on making normal payments to Sallie Mae again, but they were still unwilling to budge from their $480/mo, so I paid them what I could. Then on January 10, 2013, my roommate committed suicide and I found him. (This is not a joke post whatsoever. I'm very serious about this.) I won't get too into the details. He was my only roommate, and also a good friend. Within a week or so of that, I informed Sallie Mae about what happened and I had to go back to paying them nothing because my bills doubled and I had to find a new place to live, which I did in mid-February. They did not offer me ANY options during that time. I was forced to continue missing my monthly payments of $480. I am now living in a new apartment with my girlfriend and also a mutual friend (which is what we wanted anyway, but not under these particular circumstances). Before moving, I had to use almost ALL my remaining money to pay for moving, a new security deposit + 1st month rent, etc. By the time I was done moving, I only had about $100 in my bank account. I'm just about to start repaying Sallie Mae, now that I have more money and a "decent" safety net. Over the past 2 months, I've been getting voicemessages from a company called Allied Interstate. I never answer because they never say who they represent in their voicemessages. However, I googled their phone number recently and they are a debt collections agency who represents Sallie Mae. The strangest thing happened today. This Allied Interstate place called one of my friends (from 8664530229) and disguised themselves as a potential employer who is looking to hire me. They told my friend that I used him as a reference, and that they had an incorrect phone number for me. I guess this is one of their tactics to track down people? I wish my friend could have recorded it. He said they've been calling him for a month and he's going to try to record it next time. This can not be legal at all! Any opinions? I think I'm just going to ignore this Allied Interstate and go back to making normal payments through Sallie Mae. Thanks, ScarsUnseen