I am eight years out of school, and my private student loans have been bought and sold between companies several times. For the past several years, Discover has owned them. Here 's what 's happening : I am set up for autopay. Occasionally, about every six months, I 'll make a large principal payment, submitted through the mail. 

Every single time Discover has not applied this payment to principal, but used it to suspend my autopayments, using the principal payment as a time-release regular payments. A month goes by, and I notice that my autopay has not gone through, so I call and make them apply it to principal. 
Every time they apologize, every time I ask if they 're going to refund me the interest they 've charged me for that period, and every time they tell me it was an " error '' on their part, so they do n't have to do jack. During my last jaunt with customer service, one of the reps actually tried to placate me with " It only works out to about four cents a day for you. " That they 're stealing from me. 

Initially they tried to tell me it was my fault for not checking the correct box ( apply to principal ) on the slip, or writing it on my check, so I 've started taking pictures of my checks and slips. For a few months they had actually removed the " apply to principal '' box on their mailing slips, but as of last month it was back on. I 've gotten suspicious enough of their shady practices to request an in-detail payment history. Still waiting for it to arrive.