My mother used to work at a bank, and she said that they would sometimes sell accounts, yes. If yours were sold to Sallie Mae, I'd get away from them ASAP. Sallie Mae has a habit of not applying your payment where it's supposed to go and then charging you fees out the wazoo. They lost a deferment form--fortunately, I had records--and even though the back-dated the deferment for the time period in question, they still wanted me to pay a small fortune in fees on it. We had Words. With the supervisor's supervisor. But that's a REGULAR OCCURENCE with Sallie Mae.