Consumer complaint received 2020-02-15
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: MI
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account status incorrect

Complaint:
To whom it may concern, I am filing this complaint after failed attempts to reach FedLoan Servicing via phone on XX/XX/XXXX and via email sent on XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, all of my credit bureaus showed that FedLoan Servicing reported I had missed three monthly payments and I was in a delinquency status. This did not make sense because I was in school in XXXX and my student loans should be in deferment or forbearance state. I was taking two classes from XX/XX/XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX. I did not attend school from XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX and should have been granted a grace period of 6 months ; however, on XX/XX/XXXX, my loan went into repayment instead. Unfortunately, no letter was mailed to me to state this nor did I have access to my old email account at that time, so I did not receive this notice and believed my student loan was in grace period, based on the loan details in the promissory note for repayment terms ( students dropping below half time or out of school ). The payment due date first began on XX/XX/XXXX and on XX/XX/XXXX, I signed into FedLoan Services website and realized my loan was NOT in grace and I immediately updated my status to in-school and provided my start date of XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX. FedLoan Services updated my status and provided the message that no further action was needed from me and that XXXX would provide them further information. I believed this meant that FedLoan Servicing would contact XXXX on my behalf and confirmed that my account updated to {$0.00} payment due before signing out. On XX/XX/XXXX, I began taking classes as a full-time student, with the hopes of finally completing my degree, while working full-time to fund my education. I also worked to increase my credit score to get approval for an educational private loan to pay for continuing education, and apply for a lower interest personal loan to consolidate my larger debts into affordable payments so that my family and I can have a better financial standing. I am now unable to do this. The FedLoan Servicing sent 15+ reports of 90 days missed payments to all 3 credit bureaus, which lowered my score nearly 190 points. I have worked so hard for the past 6 years to build my credit only to have it destroyed because the FedLoan company did not properly apply the deferment/forbearance status accurately to my account. I have attached documentation for their failure to do this. The first document is the approved forbearance period that shows my loans were deferred until XX/XX/XXXX. The second documentation shows another approved forbearance period after they FINALLY updated my school status on XX/XX/XXXX that shows my deferment started from XX/XX/XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX. Given this evidence, my account should NOT have gone into a 90-day delinquency and FedLoan Services should never have sent a delinquent status to my credit bureaus for their failure to update my account.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief