Consumer complaint received 2019-01-09
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: DC
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:
XX/XX/XXXX Dear Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, I hope you can help. I have been corresponding with the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, aka XXXX, about my eligibility for PSLF. They estimate my eligibility for student loan forgiveness to be much at a much later date than I anticipated. After requesting an itemized list of what they deem eligible payments, I was surprised to find that many of the payments I made ( see the correspondence below and the attached documents for the dates concerned ) are a few dollars short of what they consider to be a full payment. The reason for this is because they had not sent me my revised income based recalculated payment amount. Instead, I had to estimate it using an income based repayment calculator. I definitely would not have made payments falling short of the full amount by a few dollars had I known the correct amount, and I was never notified of any shortfall until now. 

As a result, they are not counting many of payments, which fell short of what they claim is a full amount by a few dollars, and in many cases, by less than a dollar, toward PSLF. 

I offered to make up the difference, and they refused. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. I also do not recall requesting a forebearance in XX/XX/XXXX, which also affected my eligible payments. 

Thanks for your time, XXXX XXXX -- -- -- [ XXXX ] Re : Public Service Loan Forgiveness << Reference ID : XXXX Thank you for contacting XXXX XXXX! 

Please keep in mind in order for your payments to count towards Public Service Loan Forgiveness, you must make your full installment amount each much.

When you are approved for a Income Driven repayment plan you receive a copy of the approval which lists your monthly installment amount. 

The Forbearance that was applied to your account on XX/XX/XXXX was due to your Income Driven repayment plan being approved.

Please use the " Contact Us '' link through your online account at  XXXX  to submit inquiries via a secure email form. You may also call us toll-free at XXXX to reach our Customer Service Department, which is open Monday through Friday, XXXX XXXX - XXXX XXXX ( ET ). 



Sincerely, XXXX XXXX XXXX -- -- -- Hello, I am writing in response to case number XXXX for account number XXXX XXXX XXXX. Thank you for responding to my request for an audit of my eligible payments for PSLF. I see your record of my payments listed on XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, an XX/XX/XXXX ( please see the attached document ) are recorded as falling short of being an eligible payment by a few dollars or less. The reason for this is I did not know how much my monthly payment was during those months and I was not aware that I had not paid the full amount until now. As you can tell from the fact that I regularly paid my bill, including during those months, I intended to make the full payment, which is why I fell short of the full payment by a few dollars. 
For that reason, can I make a payment to make up the several dollar deficit of those monthly payments so that those monthly payments can then count toward my eligibility for PSLF? 

Finally, I do not recall requesting a forebearance in XX/XX/XXXX, and request that you reconsider whether the payment made on XX/XX/XXXX counts toward PSLF eligibility. 

Thank you for your time, XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation