Consumer complaint received 2021-07-14
Company: HIGHER EDUCATION STUDENT ASSISTANCE AUTHORITY (HESAA)
State: NJ
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan
Sub-issue: Can't temporarily delay making payments

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, I signed up for automatic pay with my NJCLASS loans account. I did this so that I could prevent any future payment issues coming up from XXXX, as I know that missing a student loan payment can have severe consequences on one 's credit score. That day, {$78.00} was taken out of my account. The same amount was taken out the following month, XX/XX/XXXX, and I assumed that that was what I was expected to pay moving forward. Then in XXXX, that amount changed to {$150.00}. When I called NJCLASS to ask about the amount increase, they suggested that it was due to the additional small loan that I requested for the spring semester. This made sense to me, so I went along with. 

Then came XXXX, when yet again, my payment spiked up to {$310.00}. This time when I called ( and I did this several times due to confusion on their end ), I was given no clear answer about the sudden change. They summed it up to a missed payment, which I explained made no sense since I was enrolled in THEIR automatic payment program to avoid this exact problem. Nonetheless, I was given the run around and after many frustrating calls, I gave up and hoped they would figure out the set payment amount by next month. And for the next 3 months, it seemed like they had finally sorted it out. For the months of XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX, I was charged a set rate of {$240.00}, and I budgeted accordingly for such. So you can imagine how disappointed I was to wake up today, XX/XX/XXXX to a negative sum in my bank account. This month I was charged {$360.00}, for which I was not ( and couldn't have ever been ) prepared for. The little money that I had put aside for other bills ( besides the expected XXXX ), was taken with no forewarning. 

I called the NJCLASS office the moment I woke up to the overdrawn alert from my bank, and was told that this whole time, my monthly payment amount had been set incorrectly. I was not being charged the full amount I owed since signing up for the Automatic payment system in XXXX, and because of said faulty system, I was seriously behind on payments. Not only is this current month 's payment incorrect, the past year 's payments have also been incorrect. Because of this, I now owe an additional delinquency amount of {$370.00}, with no way to pay for it. My actual monthly payment was supposed to have been {$480.00} a month this whole time. Had the Autopay done its intended job and charged me the full amount, this would not have happened. I also would have made the proper arrangements/decisions to ensure that I had the extra {$240.00} in my account every month. Because their system failed, I am left with less than no money, and no way to compensate for other important bills, let alone this one. I pleaded with the office for some kind of relief/assistance, especially since they themselves admitted to it being an error on their end. I was given nothing. I have just unsubscribed from the Autopay system, but the damage has already been done. This situation has affected both my mother and my credit scores negatively, and of course we had no way of knowing that this could have happened. I would have expected a government agency to at least have their Autopay system down, and I can't be the only one experiencing this, not to mention in the midst of this global pandemic. The past year has been difficult enough, but this takes the cake.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation