NSFAS

So I studied for maximum of 2years with NSFAS. when it it was still a 40% bursary, 60% student loan. I have seen this as the best student loan in terms repayment interests and the fact that it's linked to university offices. As soon as I got a job (last year) I started paying back the student loan, I didn't wait, they didn't habe to follow up so as a benefit of this, I was allowed to pay with zero interest rate. I authorised a debit order (fair amount because I would rather pay this off and live uncomfortably for a short period rather than paying small amounts and prolonging it). Within 10 momths of last year, I had managed to reduce my student loan by half, debit order went off every month as authorised and the amount agreed upon, until this year in June. The debit order didn't go off. I called the help desk to ask why, they told me it's because it's a weekend and it will go off the next week on working day. The next week, debit order still didn't go off. I called again and they said it will still go off, I didn't wanna do a manual payment due to fear of paying twice the agreed upon amomt on the month. The next month, was the same thing, this time, they only debited 60 rands. I called again and they told me there was something wrong with their system so I must just be patient while they fix it. A month layer (August), stl the same thing. This time I got tired of following up and decided to do a manual payment. Layer that momth I get a call from debt collectors, NASFAS has now sold my student loan to a debt collector. I explained to the debt collectors and she also confirmed that there were problems with the system on Nsfas side, however this still didn't fix the fact that I have now been sold to the vultures. Hayibo. I was really angry that I ended up taking all the savings I had and paying what I could to reduce the loan and 5.5% interest they habe introduced when my loan was sold to a dbt collector. I have been very dissapointed in how I was treated in this regard and will advise anyone who has taken a loan with Nsfas to do manual payments, record everything (emails are better as communications), request monthly statements or print these from portal (sometimes it is not updated). If I had to do it over, I would have used my graduate scholarship (which isn't much but would have survived) to pay off my student loan to avoid unnecessary headaches. I believe there is a lot of coruption in the institution and they use former students to cover for money that they have lost and can't account for