Apparently Great Lakes, one of the largest student loan service providers in the US, is new to social media and wanted to let its customers know they had arrived. Some lenders were shocked when they received the following:

Twitter immediately pounced.

My student loan company just sent me an email that said if I don’t like them on Facebook I’ll probably default on my loan.

— Shane McChurch (@shanebandgo) April 24, 2013

@jacquelineann42 Connected borrowers are more successful repayers. That might be Twitter, could be our website. Whatever works for you. — Great Lakes (@MyGreatLakes) April 24, 2013

wtf how is this legal ? i.imgur.com/1YOsrqH.png .. and it has this little logo at the end … mygreatlakes.org/mglstatic/corr… — Spellsy (@SpellsyLoL) April 24, 2013

@mygreatlakes To even imply that my ability to handle my financial responsibilities can be equated with social media use is insulting. — Coleen Watson (@ColeenMFWatson) April 24, 2013

@ridgekuhn @hannlindahl we’re aware of the seriousness of default; that’s why we’re providing new ways for customers to connect. — Great Lakes (@MyGreatLakes) April 27, 2013

Occupy’s Strike Debt quickly jumped in:

#EpicFail Tell @mygreatlakes what you think of the not-so-veiled threats in their new campaign strikedebt.org twitter.com/StrikeDebt/sta… — StrikeDebt (@StrikeDebt) April 27, 2013

Bottom line:

@mygreatlakes You are trivializing college grads that are SWIMMING in debt.

— Josh (@TerraDelu) April 27, 2013