Consumer complaint received 2023-08-22
Company: MOHELA
State: NY
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Received bad information about your loan

Complaint:
My student loan servicer is Mohela. My loans were transferred to them in XXXX, sometime in late XXXX XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  I submitted my PSLF applications and employment certification forms, before the Federal deadline. These forms showed my certified employment history at nonprofit organizations and government agencies and should count as qualifying and eligible payments towards my Public Student Loan Forgiveness Plan. Weeks went by without hearing anything so on XX/XX/XXXX I sent them a message asking the status of these applications since Mohela 's website didn't seem to be counting my employment towards my PSLF forgiveness. I am quoting the message and response below : " Hello, I am wondering what the status is of my PSLF application, specifically regarding my previous employment documents at nonprofits. I submitted these last year and they should be counted towards my PSLF amount. '' MOHELA 's Response : " Thank you for contacting MOHELA, We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Our records indicate that a request has been submitted on XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  to reprocess your Public Service Loan Forgiveness ( PSLF ) application for XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  with employment periods between XXXX to update your qualifying payments due to a processing error. Please allow up to 5 business days for processing. '' Of course, this does not answer my question, which referred to my NONPROFIT employment certification, not my employment with the City of XXXX XXXX, which is obviously not a nonprofit. Since then, they have not revisited or amended the number of qualifying and/or eligible payments that are counting towards my PSLF. This mismanagement is adding YEARS of payment to my account, which is factually inaccurate and immoral. 

Today I called Mohela and spoke to a representative. After one and a half hours of going in circles, the representative finally understood that they, Mohela, were in the wrong and were not counting my employment for many years, which would drastically reduce my debt payment and bring me closer to forgiveness. mind you, this is after 1.5 hours of saying the same thing over and over again, only to have the representative either not get or willfully misunderstand my request, which was for Mohela to certify my employment, the forms of which I sent last year. At this point she also notified me that Mohela did not send some documentation via their messaging platform that I was supposed to receive months beforehand, including a welcome letter. 

After the representative started writing a formal letter to escalate to her superior, she suddenly transferred me to someone else. At that point I had been requesting to speak to a manager but she transferred me abruptly and without saying who I was being transferred to. I also do not know if she actually submitted my request. I only know that she was drafting it. I was transferred to someone named XXXX, who was in the scholarships department ( this is not applicable to my issue, as I'm concerned about PSLF and my employment certification ) only to receive her voicemail. I left a message and was forced to hang up without any resolution or commitment to resolving my issue.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation