Consumer complaint received 2017-08-01
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: CA
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Credit monitoring or identity theft protection services
Sub-issue: Billing dispute for services

Complaint:
I noticed my credit score dropped from XXXX to XXXX from XXXX to XXXX XXXX ( see attachment : FICO Score Screen Shot ) and when I viewed my credit report I saw that FedLoan Servicing had reported me as delinquent on payments for 90 days. When I checked my FedLoan ( student loan service company ) account it stated that I do not owe anything ( see attachments : FedLoan Account pt1 Screen shot & FedLoan Account pt2 Screen shot ). I became aware of this issue on Saturday and contacted FedLoan Servicing on Monday because I thought an error had been made. I called FedLoan Servicing and spoke with XXXX ( rep ID # XXXX ). When she initially checked my account she said that it looked like no payment was due or past due. After some time for her to access my record she walked me through a series of steps in order to view my paperless bill. Since I have been on an income-driven repayment plan of {$0.00} per month for over a year, I was not aware that a payment was due. To this date, the email notifications have not changed, which remind me to view my account online ( see attachments : FedLoan email reminder ( old ) & FedLoan bill reminder email ( most recent ) ) ; but my account still says I have nothing due. Even when I received emails stating I had payments to make ( see attachement : FedLoan bill reminder email ) and logged into my account to view the details, my account always showed {$0.00} due. Therefore I assumed it was either info from an old account ( my old Federal Student Aid account ) or it was reflecting the amount accruing on my account over time, that was still collecting interest -- while I continue to make monthly payments of {$0.00}. I pay all my bills. I certainly would have paid it had I not received conflicting information which led me to conclude that the payment notices were an error from an old account. I never received an email to notify me of any upcoming new payments in XX/XX/XXXX or XX/XX/XXXX ; I only received a notice on XX/XX/XXXX that I had missed a payment for XX/XX/XXXX ( see attachment : FedLoan payment reminder email ). After I completed my taxes in XX/XX/XXXX and was able to update my income information I reapplied for my income-driven repayment plan. I also received a notice saying that FedLoan sometimes will cover any outstanding amounts when loan recipients enroll in a repayment plan ( see attachment : FedLoan IDR Request Response ). I considered this the logical reason for why my account says I owe nothing even though I 've received conflicting emails. I assumed, if the emails were in fact correct, that FedLoan had covered the amounts due based on my financial information that I had provided when I re-certified for the income-based repayment plan. For all of these reasons, every time I checked my account and it said I had nothing due or past due, I thought that was accurate. Again, I honestly, logically concluded that I owed nothing. When I offered to pay all amounts due in-full, to have the credit report amended, XXXX told me that the only payment they could accept is the exit fee to re-enroll in the income-driven repayment plan for this year. Until today I did not know that there was an exit fee required. I repeated my offer to pay all past-due amounts to bring my account current since I truly did not know that a payment was due, due to conflicting information from my FedLoan account. She said that I can not make a payment to cover anything past-due and can only pay the {$220.00} exit fee ( which she guided me to view in 'paperless billing '. See attachment : FedLoan Bill ), which I would have to pay online, not over the phone. I explained that this is devastating, life-changing damage to my credit and that I want to work with them to bring my account current so the issue can be corrected as soon as possible. XXXX stated they are not able to accept payment. All of my payments with all of my creditors have been paid as agreed. I am not delinquent and have not been delinquent on anything I owe. I would have made the payments had I known they were due, but whenever I logged into my account it would reflect a XXXX balance. As soon as I realized that there was an actual issue with my account and that there were payments owed I contacted them to work out a solution and make the payments. FedLoan said there is nothing they can do for me because I was delinquent. My inadvertent delinquency was caused by the conflicting information FedLoan provided. My conclusion that nothing was due was an honest, logical, reasonable assessment.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief