Consumer complaint received 2018-07-03
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: PA
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:
XX/XX/XXXX : I submitted my employment certification form for qualification under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. At about that time, my federal loans were transferred to XXXX XXXX as they are the servicing company for all lenders in the PSLF program. 

XX/XX/XXXX : I learned that only eight payments and eleven payments were identified as qualified payments for the PSLF program for the two loans serviced by XXXX. Each loan, in reality, should have close to 100 qualifying payments toward the 120 minimum. 

XX/XX/XXXX : I called XXXX to discuss this issue. They told me that they would review the details of my repayment and to call back to learn more, about a month later. 

XX/XX/XXXX : I called XXXX again to inquire about the qualification of those payments. I was told that a large batch of lenders were transferred to XXXX and their system inaccurately counted the number of qualifying payments when they were transferred. To rectify this, individual assessments of hundreds, or likely, thousands of lenders was required to arrive at the correct number of qualifying payments. This representative concurred with me, that many of my payments were both made on time and under the correct repayment plans. Because of the individual assessments, it would be some time to get this rectified and that I should check in on a regular basis ; which I've done and continue to do. It was estimated that it would take another six to eight weeks. I was told that my case would be " elevated '' to a supervisor for more immediate resolution. 

XXXX - XX/XX/XXXX : I called XXXX again to inquire about the qualification of those payments. I was told that a backlog of these issues would push off the conclusion of my case for another eight to twelve weeks. I was told again that my case would be " elevated '' to a supervisor for more immediate resolution. 

XX/XX/XXXX : I called XXXX again to inquire about the qualification of these payments. I was told that the backlog continued and that it would likely be a total of six to eight months for my case to be resolved. I was told again that my case would be " elevated. '' It was at this point that I realized that I was being given the run around. I was connected with a supervisor who admitted that they don't know how long it will be until these issues are resolved and further that previous " elevations '' to a supervisor never took place and that no supervisor was working on my case. 

Ultimately, this has been a very frustrating process whereby XXXX continues to lead me on in the belief that there is some point in time that this will be solved. What's worse is they have mislead me to believe that some action was taking place on their part, when in fact, their own notes of my case do not show any " elevation '' of my case to a supervisor. Further, I don't even know if the payment program I'm in now is counting towards the PSLF qualifying payments since the number of qualifying payments is still at eight and eleven, despite eight months passing since I had my loans transferred.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation