Sallie Mae has been upgrading its systems to better conform with that of the credit agencies, presumably to make reporting easier among other things. But it all backfired when an unspecified "glitch"--which could be anything, let's face it--resulted in thousands of customers having their credit ratings instantly turned to crap. The AP reports that the company "erroneously reported graduated or extended repayment plans for student loans as arrangements for partial payment, causing the Equifax agency to falsely code some borrowers' accounts as delinquent." Some FICO credit scores dropped 100 points or more as a result of the error. This is pretty much what keeps CIOs up all night. This is a PR disaster that didn't have to be. Yet another cautionary tale.  

For more:
- here's the AP article [1]