The elusive payoff letter is not unique to businesses in this industry. When I was paying off my student loans at a much faster pace than the lender anticipated, they did their best to stop me.

First they told me I didn't have to make any payments for the next 6 months. Then when I continued to pay anyway, they returned a payment back to me for reason of "too many payments". They actually put a block on my account so that I couldn't pay them more than once in a thirty day period. I was paying them twice a month at that point. They put an end to that.

My last payment to them was a check I wrote for about $10,000. They told me I wasn't allowed to refinance my student loan to another lender so they weren't going to accept it. Of course it wasn't a refinance, it was check drawn against my own bank account. Took a few months but they finally came to accept that I was done with them.

It costs so much to acquire a good customer in this business. Nobody wants to rush to see them go, especially if it's to a competitor.