Consumer complaint received 2018-02-25
Company: GREAT LAKES
State: CA
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:
Hello, My complaint is with regards to my payments on 3 of 6 accounts I have with Great Lakes loan services. I am currently on deferment and I am aggressively paying towards decreasing the interest and principal on 3 unsubsidized loans I have with Great Lakes. These loans are named XXXX  XXXX, XXXX XXXXXXXX and XXXX   XXXX. 

Unfortunately, I do not have a record of the amounts owed for each of these accounts prior to making my first payment on XX/XX/XXXX ( below ), so I do not know if the money was allocated as I had authorized. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I authorized the following payment with clear acknowledgement from the representative of how the money was to be allocated with verbal read back : XX/XX/XXXX payment confirmation # XXXX of total payment of {$1000.00}. {$960.00} towards interest on tXXXX XXXX with {$34.00} towards principal on XXXX XXXX 

As of XX/XX/XXXX the balances for each account was as follows : XXXX XXXXXXXX Total Balance : {$6000.00} [ Principal Balance ( {$5400.00} ) + Interest Balance ( {$610.00} ) ]. 

XXXX XXXX Total Balance : {$8700.00} [ Principal Balance ( {$8700.00} ) + Interest Balance ( {$12.00} ) ]. 

XXXX XXXXXXXX Total Balance : {$4100.00} [ Principal Balance ( {$3800.00} ) + Interest Balance ( {$240.00} ) ]. 

OnXX/XX/XXXX I authorized the following payments with clear acknowledgement from the representative of how the money was to be allocated with verbal read back : XX/XX/XXXX payment confirmation # XXXX of total payment {$1100.00}. {$870.00} towards interest ( XXXX XXXX : {$610.00}, XXXX XXXX : {$12.00}, XXXX XXXX : {$240.00} ). {$320.00} towards principal ( XXXX XXXXXXXX : {$200.00}, XXXX  XXXX : {$120.00} ). 

OnXX/XX/XXXX I logged on to my account to see if the authorized payments had processed and found that the allocation of money was arbitrarily allocated. 

As ofXX/XX/XXXX the balances for each account was as follows : XXXX XXXXXXXX Total Balance : {$5600.00} [ Principal Balance ( {$5400.00} ) + Interest Balance ( {$190.00} ) ]. 

XXXX XXXXXXXX Total Balance : {$8200.00} [ Principal Balance ( {$8200.00} ) + Interest Balance ( {$12.00} ) ]. 

XXXX XXXXXXXX Total Balance : {$3800.00} [ Principal Balance ( {$3800.00} ) + Interest Balance ( {$3.00} ) ]. 

Nothing was paid towards principal on XXXX XXXX, which should have been {$120.00} as I requested as well as my request to completely pay off in full all interest ( {$610.00} ) on XXXX XXXX as of XX/XX/XXXX. 

Instead, {$470.00} was allocated to XXXX XXXX, which is not what I requested and {$40.00} was allocated to XXXX XXXX, which was also not requested. 

I was told over the phone that there would not be a problem fulfilling my request because there were no restrictions on the way I chose to allocate my payments. I purposely requested to pay the total interest accrued on the three accounts ( XXXXs XXXX, XXXX and XXXX ) in order to avoid any underlying complications. 

The way Great Lakes has distributed the money was unauthorized and causes confusion and frustration in determining the progress towards repaying my school loans.

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