Consumer complaint received 2018-07-19
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: MT
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 consolidated my Direct Loan in XX/XX/XXXX. They were my loan servicer for many years and I made my regular payments on time. The loans got assigned to XXXX XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX. I again made all of my regular payments. I am in the PSLF program so I had to transfer my loans to fedloan servicing. I kept meticulous records so when I asked for a summary of my payments that counted toward PSLF they were short many payments. They claimed that several payments occurred while I was unknowingly receiving a deferment so I filled out the paperwork and had those removed. My statements from XXXX throughout the first 6 months of XXXX showed 72 qualifying payments. In XX/XX/XXXX after they received my employment certification the monthly bill showed that I had made 84 qualifying payments. On XXXX XXXX, XXXX my bill now showed that I only had made 50 qualifying payments. No explanation was given. I called fedloan and they said it was a computer glitch and it would be fixed in 60 days. It was not. After many phone calls they finally said that it would be fixed in XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, I received a statement from them verifying that I had only made 65 payments with no explanation and no dates of the payments that didn't qualify, just a summary of my work experience and the total number of qualifying payments. After examining the document it appears that only XXXX payment from XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX counts toward PSLF, even though I made nearly two years of payments during that time. No reason was given. On the XX/XX/XXXX billing statement the 65 PSLF payments were reduced to 56 qualifying payments. Again no reason was given for the discrepancy. I have contacted them but their customer service agents did not have any answers. I tried to get a manager in the department that could help me but I was told they don't take phone calls. I am within two years of having my loans forgiven so I can only assume they are deliberately taking these payments away. Fortunately I have kept the necessary records and sending those in to you so that you can correct this. After researching XXXX online many other borrowers are having the same issues with missing payments so I believe this is a fraudulent practice and they should be removed as a servicer. I am attaching a summary of the payments to XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) and the fedloan summary. I am not sure which of the XXXX payments they took away that was previously approved by XXXX. While researching I found two additional payments that they missed before, the {$220.00} payment on XX/XX/XXXX to Direct Loans and the {$390.00} payment to XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX bringing the new total to 30 payments they are trying to take from my qualification. I am sending the documentation for those. As fedloan hasnt told me which of the other payments they are not counting I am sending their own summary of the payments that qualified previously with the documentation removing the deferments/forbearance that allowed those payments to qualify.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation