Consumer complaint received 2019-10-28
Company: GREAT LAKES
State: MN
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Received bad information about your loan

Complaint:
My student loans were taken out for XXXX school, and came into repayment in XX/XX/XXXX. The account was transferred to Great Lakes Education for servicing in XXXX. 

The monthly payment amount of the loan was {$290.00}, and according to what has been displayed on the Great Lakes website in my profile since the time of transfer is that my " Repayment Terms '' were that starting on XX/XX/XXXX, I was required to make 106 monthly payments of {$290.00}. 

Additionally, within my online account profile, the " Monthly Payment Timeline '' provided showed that making monthly payments of {$300.00}, my final payment would be in XX/XX/XXXX, which aligned with the terms noted above. 

Starting in XX/XX/XXXX, I decided to start making slightly higher payments to include an extra {$100.00} each month, which the intention of paying the loan down faster. Every month since XX/XX/XXXX, I have paid {$390.00}. Based on the information provided by Great Lakes on their website related to being " paid ahead, '' I estimated that this would allow me to pay the loan off earlier than XX/XX/XXXX, as early as XXXX or XX/XX/XXXX. 

After watching my loan balances over the past year, I started to become concerned that even with the amount I was paying in excess of my required payment, the balance did not seem like it would actually be paid in full earlier than XX/XX/XXXX, so last week I sent an email request to Great Lakes, asking that they look at my current balance, current payments and the information showing on my profile online to explain whether I would actually be paid in full earlier than XX/XX/XXXX. 

The initial response I received stated that if I continued to make the additional payments, I would be paid in full after 19 more payments, or in XX/XX/XXXX. The assumption appeared to be that XX/XX/XXXX was " early, '' when in fact that is the date that has been given by Great Lakes online to me since they started servicing my loan as the date by which I would be paid in full if I paid only regular monthly payments of {$290.00}. 

I attempted to email Great Lakes again, to ask that they specifically tell me whether the information displayed on their website was wrong, or if something had gone wrong in the application of past payments, because it did not make sense that I could pay extra each month, only to have the loan pay off exactly when it would otherwise have done if I did not make any additional principal payments. They apparently did not bother to look at my online profile, and just repeated that they had already addressed my questions. 

Today ( XX/XX/XXXX ) I called Great Lakes and spoke with a representative. She actually took the time to look at my account, along with the online information in my profile, and confirmed that what has been displayed to me in their online portal has been wrong since they took over servicing in XXXX. In other words, my " Repayment Terms '' are wrong. If had not decided on my own to start paying additional money in XX/XX/XXXX and only kept making the required payments, I would definitely not have been paid in full in XX/XX/XXXX, in spite of what they specifically stated on their website. 

While they admitted to the error and stated that they will make the adjustment to my profile, the representative also stated that this happens occasionally. This implies that the company knows about the potentially deceptive and misleading information provided to consumers repaying their student debt, but that they apparently do not feel that they need to proactively review or correct this for their customers. 

Obviously, this is very discouraging to me, as I have been planning my finances with the expectation of being done paying my student loan earlier than XX/XX/XXXX, but I am fortunate enough that I caught it in time to make adjustments. For a consumer who reaches what they thought was their last payment date to discover that they instead must keep paying for a year or more additionally, this is unacceptable. 

I do not anticipate that Great Lakes is going to provide any kind of relief to me personally, but I am filing this complaint to call attention to the fact that they are not providing accurate information to all of their customers about the actual terms of their repayment.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation