Consumer complaint received 2023-09-17
Company: MOHELA
State: TX
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:
According to XXXX, once XXXX relief pause on student loan ends, " payment amount will return to what it was before your payments were paused ( unless you've recertified or switched plans since the payment pause began ) ''. 
Prior to the pause, my XXXX plan was XXXX. I HAVE NOT recertified or switched payment plan and is still currently listed as having XXXX as my XXXX plan. Prior to the pause, my monthly payment was {$190.00}. Around XX/XX/XXXX, I logged in to Mohela and noticed my new monthly payment was listed as {$1800.00}. I sent several messages to Mohela requesting explanation but was told my payment increased because I did not recertify my income in the past several years. I responded that due to XXXX XXXX related student loan pause, studentaid.gov has announced that recertification is not required from the time the pause started until at least 6 months after the pause ends. Therefore, there should not be a penalty to not recertifying my income during the student loan pause ( in fact, not recertifying is one of the criteria for keeping payment amount the same ). Mohela agent was not able to comment further. Several months later, my estimated monthly payment reverted to {$190.00}. Unfortunately since the pause ended, I checked back on my account again and now the monthly payment is again back to {$1800.00} with a due date of XX/XX/XXXX. 

I called Mohela agent who was not able to provide explanation of why my monthly payment is listed as {$1800.00} when the federal government has announced that it should be the payment prior to the pause if the borrower has not changed XXXX plan or recertified. She was also unable to explain how {$1800.00} was calculated. She attempted to get me to recertify my income over the phone which I refused. She stated that recertification is the only way to fix this mysterious problem on my monthly payment discrepancy, and she's unable to help me further. 

I called the office of ombudsman and the agent suggested {$1800.00} is the payment on a standard 10 years repayment plan but she does not understand why my monthly payment is now that of the standard 10 years repayment plan when I'm enrolled in XXXX and am still listed as being on XXXX on Mohela 's system. She suggested this might have happened because I missed the annal income recertification deadline prior to the pause began. This is not correct as my last income recertification date was XX/XX/XXXX and the pause began 6 months later. Her only solution is for me to file another income recertification. 

I'm filing a complaint because according all studentaid.gov 's announcements, my monthly payment should be what it was prior to the pause and no additional income recertification should be required until at least 6 months after the pause ends or, if the recertification anniversary falls before that 6 months period, deadline will be pushed to 1 year later ( in my case, recertification anniversary is XX/XX/XXXX and the pause ended XX/XX/XXXX. Therefore, next required income recertification should be XX/XX/XXXX ). Mohela is violating rules and regulation put forth by the Department of Education as announced by studentaid.gov by arbitrarily changing my monthly payment without just cause and requiring early income certification when such certification should not be required until XX/XX/XXXX.

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