Consumer complaint received 2023-12-06
Company: MOHELA
State: VA
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan
Sub-issue: Problem with forgiveness, cancellation, or discharge

Complaint:
Good Morning, I am currently in the process of applying for Public Student Loan Forgiveness ( PSLF ). Upon review of my loan repayment history, I identified a period from XX/XX/XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX  to XX/XX/XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX during which my loans were incorrectly placed into an educational deferment status. During that time, I was in a medical residency program thus I met criteria for the loans to be placed into mandatory forbearance status and I did not qualify for an educational deferment. I was not offered IDR at that time. I was only offered deferment or standard repayment. 
My current loan servicer is Mohela. Per Mohelas recommendations, I submitted recommended paperwork on XX/XX/XXXX. After speaking to Mohelas customer service representatives and managers numerous times since submission of my initial paperwork on XX/XX/XXXX, I submitted a follow up cover letter and resubmitted suggested paper work on XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, I received written correspondence from Mohela stating that the forbearance was applied from XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX. I called Mohela and was told the deferment to forbearance change was actually applied XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX and the next step was to wait 2-5 business days for my PSLF counts to be updated under the IDR waiver. 
From XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX, I continued to call Mohela weekly to check on the status of the counts of forbearance. On XX/XX/XXXX, I spoke to another Mohela customer service advocate who said that Mohela is unable to update my counts. They explained that prior customer service advocates should have flagged my account to be sent to the Department of Education for application of the IDR waiver once the updated forbearance status from XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX was applied. 
My grievance is that my account has been mishandled multiple times. I have been ill advised too many times by student loan companies including Mohela. I was given vastly different instructions ranging from just sit and wait to complete a separate form ; just to be told to not sign or do anything because Mohela has adequate documentation on their end to make the adjustment. Then to be told that nothing can be done and the incorrect application of educational deferment to my account in the past can not be corrected without doing irreparable damage to my credit. I literally received a different response every time I called. I am worried that Mohela, again, has not followed the appropriate steps in order to have my account reviewed by the Department of Education with the new 36 months of consecutive forbearance. Of note, I was working for a non-profit organization at the time and Mohela has by employment certification for that time period. Such a review would result in this 36-month period qualifying for PSLF under the newly updated guidance from the Department of Education and subsequent forgiveness. I fear I am again undergoing loan steering and my account was purposefully stalled so it goes into repayment. 
To that end, I have included with this letter the correspondence from Mohela stating XX/XX/XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX are now correctly classified as being in forbearance. 
Thank you for your time.

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