Consumer complaint received 2019-03-12
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: NY
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Problem with customer service

Complaint:
I currently have eight federal student loans serviced by the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency ( PHEAA ) and I am participating in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program ( PSLF ). I have been attempting to resolve an ongoing matter regarding my payments credited toward PSLF with PHEAA for more than a year. I am now writing to complain of PHEAAs inability to properly credit my qualifying loan payments toward PSLF, their inability to provide me with requested documentation and their inability to provide any semblance of helpful or timely customer service. 

I graduated school in XX/XX/XXXX and entered the workforce in XX/XX/XXXX. Since XX/XX/XXXX I have worked full-time for the same PSLF qualifying 501 ( c ) ( 3 ) employer ( without interruption, continuing through the present day ) and have made monthly loan payments under the same PSLF qualifying Income Based Repayment ( IBR ) program. My qualifying repayment plan, my employer, my full-time employment status and my employer 's 501 ( c ) ( 3 ) status have never changed since my loans went into repayment in XXXX and I began making monthly payments. I have never consolidated or refinanced my loans. 

My eight federal loans ( 4 Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loans and 4 Direct Subsidized Stafford Loans ) were serviced by the XXXX XXXX   XXXX XXXX until the Department of Education automatically transferred them to the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) in XX/XX/XXXX. My eight federal loans were automatically transferred again, this time from XXXX to PHEAA in XX/XX/XXXX when I submitted my first Employment Certification Form ( ECF ) as part of my participation in PSLF. Upon balance transfer, PHEAA only credited me with the XXXX qualifying payments I made while XXXX was my servicer. I received no credit for the qualifying monthly payments I made during the two years my loans were serviced by the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. 

I initially raised this issue with PHEAA via their phone based customer service in XXXX of XXXX. After multiple unsuccessful attempts, I was finally told that PHEAA could not provide any assistance over the phone for this problem, that I should try to gather all available documentation of my prior payments and submit an email to their customer service department. I was unable to obtain my payment records from the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX online so I emailed PHEAA to request these forms on XX/XX/XXXX. I received a receipt confirmation of my email but never any response. I emailed once more on XX/XX/XXXX and was told that " The payment count that you currently have is the payments that we were able to automatically qualify towards PSLF. We have not completed the full review of the entire payment history from your previous servicer as of yet. 

Despite multiple subsequent calls and emails over the next nine months I have never been able to obtain any meaningful updates, information or follow up of any kind from PHEAA. Additionally, they have never provided me with my payment records from the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, which I have requested repeatedly. Instead, without any warning or notification, my credited payments were suddenly decreased from XXXX across all eight loans to non-sensical numbers ranging from XXXX to XXXX, all without having received my new Employment Certification Form. 

I am therefore lodging a formal complaint against XXXX for 1 ) failing to provide adequate or timely customer service 2 ) failing to provide requested records 3 ) failing to properly credit my loan payments toward PSLF and 4 ) inappropriately and incorrectly  adjusting my credited payments without notice or explanation.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation