Sallie Mae online consumer information privacy policy

This Web site is brought to you jointly by Sallie Mae and USA Funds.  Below please find the privacy policies for each entity.

 

Sallie Mae | NELA

 

The Sallie Mae family of companies is the recognized leader in helping students and families plan and pay for college. To keep this distinction, we host innovative websites (for example, www.salliemae.com, www.nelliemae.com, www.studentloanfunding.com, www.sssc.com, www.slfaloan.com, www.tuitionpay.com, and www.collegeanswer.com) and provide visitors with helpful and timely information along with interactive tools. We respect the privacy of our customers and visitors. We are also committed to protecting their online information with the same care that we use for all Sallie Mae company transactions.

Like many websites, we may place "cookies" on your computer when you visit Sallie Mae websites. Cookies are pieces of data that we place on your computer that can help us understand how you use our sites. We may place both temporary and non-expiring cookies on your computer when you visit. Temporary cookies are designed to stay on your computer only while you are visiting our websites. Non-expiring cookies are placed on the hard drive in your computer and allow us to collect information such as date and time of visits, the time spent on the site, and pages viewed while on the site. We do NOT use cookies to collect any personally identifiable information. We use cookies to evaluate behaviors, but we do not use the cookies to identify individual visitors to our websites. By changing settings located in your Web browser you may prevent cookies from being placed on your computer.

 

Our Web server automatically recognizes your domain name but not your email address. We do not collect personally identifiable information from visitors to our sites unless you expressly provide it to us. The information we do collect from our websites (such as domain name, number of hits, pages visited, and length of user session) may be combined to analyze how our websites are used. This information is then used to improve the usefulness of the sites.

 

 

We collect only limited "personally identifiable information" on our websites. Personally identifiable information is information about you such as your name, address, phone number and email address. We gather this information so we can deliver the products and services you request easily and efficiently and to administer our businesses. This information also helps us design and offer new products and services we believe you will like and use. We feel that the more we understand about you, the better we can serve you. We also collect some information because federal or state law requires it.

 

The types of personally identifiable information about you that we collect on our websites and the ways that we use such information include the following:

• Contact information such as your name, address, email address, or telephone number. Examples of how we use this information are to send you information about our products and services, and to call or write you about your accounts.
• Identification information such as a Social Security number or a mother’s maiden name. This information helps us identify you as our customer, prevent unauthorized use of accounts or unauthorized disclosure of information, or report to the IRS the amount of interest you paid on your student loan or mortgage.
• Financial information such as income, assets, or liabilities. We use this information to process applications and to suggest other products and services that help you get the most from your relationship with us.

 

 

Sallie Mae carefully limits and controls how we share information about customers. We share customer's personally identifiable information collected on our websites in limited cases. They include:

 

Sharing of information within the Sallie Mae family of companies
We offer our services and products to you through our family of companies. Different Sallie Mae companies offer education loans, private loans, mortgage loans and college savings plans and programs. By sharing your information among these companies, we are able to offer you convenient customer service, combined statements and simpler applications, along with special discounts and other benefits.

 

Sharing of information outside the Sallie Mae family of companies
We sometimes share customer information with outside companies that perform services for us or provide various financial products.

• Service Providers
  From time to time, we use outside companies to perform services for us, such as printing payment coupons, preparing or mailing statements, or software programming. We also use outside companies to help us market our own products. When we use these companies, we give them only the customer information needed to perform that service.
  
  Before we disclose any customer information to these companies, we require them by legal agreement to keep this information confidential and to use it only as authorized. They are not permitted to use this information for their own purposes or to sell this information to any other person.
  
  
• Joint Marketers
  In order to offer you various financial products (for example, credit cards or insurance), we sometimes enter into marketing agreements with other financial institutions that offer these products. We select the financial institutions we work with very carefully.
  
  Generally, we provide these financial institutions with only customer contact information. For some products, we might also provide them limited account information, such as the amount of the loan or mortgage, maturity date, monthly payment amount and payment history. We never give these financial institutions your account numbers. They are permitted to use the information we give them only for the specific products being offered under our contract.
  
  Sallie Mae doesn't share customer information with non-financial companies to enable them to market their products and services to our customers. We do occasionally use customer information ourselves to offer third-party products or services that we think you may want or need. If you receive an offer, in your statement or along with other Sallie Mae information, for a product or service other than one provided by a Sallie Mae company, Sallie Mae or a company that works for us forwarded that offer to you. No personally identifiable information about you was shared with the non-financial company.

 

Other Circumstances Where We May Share Information
We may share customer information in other circumstances as allowed by law. Some examples are:

• When you specifically request it or give us permission to do so.
• When we are required by law. For example, we are required to make disclosures to various student loan guarantee agencies, your schools, and the U.S. Department of Education in connection with education loans.
• When we share information with consumer reporting agencies, when we suspect fraudulent or criminal activity, when we receive a subpoena or when we are ordered by a court to do so.
• When we sell a particular line of business or function.

 

Unless prohibited by law, you have the right, upon reasonable notice, to view any personally identifiable information collected from you through your visits to or use of our websites, to make corrections to such information if necessary, or to request that such information be removed from our systems. You may do so by contacting us at the address indicated at the end of this policy.

 

We do not intend to collect nonpublic personal information from children under 13 years of age. If we learn that we have collected this information from a child under the age of 13, we will promptly take all reasonable steps to delete the data from our system.

 

From time to time, you may access our sites through the site of one of our marketing partners. We will try to show clearly, by placing our marketing partner's name or logo in a prominent place or otherwise, whether a page is co-branded. If you provide your information on a co-branded page, your registration information may be shared with our marketing partner.

 

Some of our websites also permit you to access non-Sallie Mae sites directly from our websites. It is important to remember that, if you link to a non-Sallie Mae site from any of our websites, that party's privacy policy and its terms and conditions of use apply to you. We encourage you to learn about each third party's privacy policy before giving personal information to them.

 

In our information technology systems environment, Sallie Mae maintains administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect your personal information. Only those Sallie Mae employees with a business need to access your nonpublic personal information—for example, loan officers and technical personnel—may do so and only for that reason.

 

 

If you have any questions or comments about this policy, please write us or call us at:

Customer Privacy
Sallie Mae Servicing
P.O. Box 9500
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18773-9500
(800) 428-1039

 

Hours of operation: Monday–Friday, 8a.m.–5p.m. CT

 

The effective date of this Online Consumer Information Privacy Policy is January 14, 2008. It replaces all prior online information privacy policies issued by SLM Corporation or any other Sallie Mae company. We reserve the right to change our Online Consumer Information Privacy Policy. Any changes to our Online Consumer Information Privacy Policy will be reflected in the updated version displayed at our corresponding website.