Consumer complaint received 2022-10-19
Company: EdFinancial Services
State: CA
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Trouble with how payments are being handled

Complaint:
On Monday, XX/XX/XXXX, I contacted Edfinancial for the first of many attempts after receiving the news of Bidens Loan Forgiveness. I saw on the Federal Student Aid website that we were able to request a refund on payments made throughout the payment pause that started in XXXX. I went ahead and asked them to do that but was immediately taken aback when they notified me that the processing times would be a minimum of 150 days.Throughout the pandemic I paid {$8900.00} in payments to pay off my entire loan. When I asked for some form of confirmation that they are processing my request in their system, I was told I can not be given any form of confirmation via email or otherwise, even though they were happy to give me email receipts back when they accepted {$8900.00} dollars from me during the pandemic. I suspected they were not recording my request or beginning the process so I called again a week later to check and the representative on the phone told me they had no record of a refund requested by me in their system. I was distressed but remained calm and repeated my request from a week prior. 
On XX/XX/XXXX I saw that my balance owed on EdFinancial and XXXX was re-instated to the full amount of {$8900.00} but my money was never refunded to me. I was told by a representative that it would take up to 10 days after my loan balance is re-instated for the refund to hit my bank account and now it has been 30 days since my balance has been reinstated on EdFinancial and XXXX, and 50 days since my original request. During my third call with EdFinancial I was told by EdFinancial it would take another 60 days from today, XX/XX/XXXX, for the refund to be deposited to my bank. Each representative keeps lying and extending the quoted timeframe further out after each deadline passes and I check up on their quoted timeframe. 

EdFinancial is directing blame on the XXXX and saying the XXXX has my funds and it is outside EdFinancial 's control. 

It seems as though edfinancial is one of the ONLY student loan providers who is maneuvering with such shady business practices. XXXX, XXXX XXXX, aidvantage are only quoting 2-3 weeks turnaround time and those that I know with those loan providers have already seen their refunds hit their bank account. 

I realize with the influx of calls that getting our money back could take a while but its very concerning to me that theyre saying this entire process can take 6 months to a year when every single other student loan provider has a way quicker turnaround despite having thousands of requests as well. Currently, getting that money back would be life-changing for me as well as many others. So seeing other peoples loan providers refunding their money to their banks in just 5 business days makes me very concerned that this company does not have our best interests at heart. I have never dealt with a more unprofessional company in my life. 

PLEASE HELP ME EDFINANCIAL IS NOT REFUNDING MY MONEY AFTER 50 DAYS

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation