Consumer complaint received 2021-10-06
Company: AES/PHEAA
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:
I have been a XXXX XXXX since XX/XX/XXXX and not once during that time have I ever been able to have my Public Service Loan Forgiveness properly processed. In preparation for the latest round of requests for that, I went onto StudentAid.Gov and found a number of discrepancies that I would like your help with understanding and hopefully correcting. 

My student loan ( actual student loans with no consolidation ) story began in XXXX and continued through XXXX while I was in undergrad, graduate school and a year at law school, where I learned that was not the career for me. This loan history, along with helpful notations like paid in full, cancelled, and paid in full by consolidation '' ( as distinct from paid in full ) are noted. I have attached a sheet and while the notes regarding what was paid in full by me privately versus what was paid in full by consolidation match what I actually recall, the subsequent activity and notes in the details about loans that were paid in full getting paid a second time by consolidation are alarming and may explain how I now owe {$140000.00} after borrowing {$94000.00}, of which {$18000.00} was cancelled due to fraud and toward the retirement of which {$23000.00} in payments were made to various servicers retained by the Department of Education. 

By their own records, between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX ( while I was in school ) I consolidated {$20000.00} in subsidized loans and {$28000.00} in unsubsidized loans. I think those are most likely wrong because in XXXX including loans that I took out in XXXX to XXXX I had {$36000.00} in subsidized loans and {$21000.00} in unsubsidized loans and had made payments to the providers. Nevertheless, in XXXX the Department of Education consolidated in Direct Loans ( with in school payment and interest forbearance and a promise of cancellation after 25 years ) {$49000.00} in student loans which we can say was my outstanding balance as of XX/XX/XXXX. At that time, I had secured a fellowship but the funding was pulled so I subsequently went back and took out {$13000.00} in subsidized loans and {$4900.00} in unsubsidized loans. Those were backed by the XXXX and I paid those loans back directly to them through a compromise with a payments of 75 % of the balance. 

In XXXX, 7 years after my first consolidation, my loans were reconsolidated and switched to a new servicer, the amounts reconsolidated for the non-subsidized portion were {$7300.00} on XX/XX/XXXX and {$37000.00} on XX/XX/XXXX. The subsidized loans followed that pattern with {$19000.00} consolidated on XX/XX/XXXX and {$26000.00} consolidated on XX/XX/XXXX. Then, in XXXX, another new servicer and another consolidation with the balances growing to {$62000.00} and {$79000.00} under the new servicer. 

So, just to recap, {$94000.00} dollars in loans, {$18000.00} of which were cancelled, so a net of {$76000.00} in actual loans with payments of {$23000.00} to the various servicers of the consolidated loans and {$18000.00} paid back directly to the guarantor and somehow I owe more than {$140000.00} and I would like to request documentation of that. What was consolidated in XXXX, what was added on in XXXX and what was added on again in XXXX. Basically, how did the balance double. Why am I not eligible for the 25 year forgiveness and/or the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program ?

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation