Consumer complaint received 2018-08-25
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: TX
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem
Sub-issue: Problem with personal statement of dispute

Complaint:
During the month of XX/XX/2018, I called my servicer to find payment options for my loan only for the month of XXXX since I was having financial difficulties during this month. The person on the line suggested a forbearance. I asked many many times that I wanted to make sure this type of option will not affect my credit since I have been working for a year to repair my credit. The loan customer service person assured me that it will NOT affect my credit. He submitted the forbearance form. Within a week I get an alert from XXXX informing me that my credit went down 22 points due to my lender reporting a change of total balance from {$300000.00} to {$330000.00}. I called my lender on XX/XX/2018 right away and explained that the previous consumer service operator from their office had giving me wrong information about the forbearance. I told him that I wanted to reverse my forbearance. He said he would do it and that I only had to make my loan payments which I did, I made a payment of {$180.00}. I asked him again if this would solve the problem and he said yes, that I would just have to wait two weeks before my lender reports the original balance of XXXX to the credit bureau. He assured me that my loan interest was not going to be capitalize. But then I receive a letter that my loan is going to get capitalize at the end of the month due to the forbearance. I called the lender again and explain the situation once again, but this time I asked to speak to a supervisor. I was on the phone with her for about an hour. Again, she assured me that my loan 's interest was not going to get capitalized because they reversed the forbearance and the balance they were going to report to the credit bureau was {$300000.00}. She told me it could take from 30 to 90 days for them to report this to the credit agencies. She then suggested for me to call the credit agencies so the change could be done faster. I then call XXXX  at the beginning of XX/XX/2018 and open a dispute with them about this issue. I was sure the problem was going to end here, since my lender assured me that it was a matter of time of reporting my original balance and that my interest was not going to get capitalized due to this error. I just received the dispute results ( XX/XX/2018 ) and my lender is reporting an original balance of {$330000.00} and disagrees with my dispute. I am very frustrated about this whole ordeal since I have been back and forth with my lender with this issue since XX/XX/2018 and I still have this major problem of having a derogatory credit rating due to their negligence about giving me wrong information about the forbearance not affecting my credit and them not informing me that through the forbearance my loan 's interest will be capitalize, thus increasing my original balance and in this way reporting it to the credit agencies thus decreasing my credit by 22 points. I would really ask for your help on this important matter.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation