Consumer complaint received 2018-03-09
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: MD
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:
In XX/XX/XXXX, my student loans were transferred to XXXX XXXX as part of the Public Student Loan Forgiveness Program. Within a month I contacted XXXX XXXX XXXX to inquire about how many more payments I have until I reach 120 payments ( and the 10 year service requirement ). The servicer said they needed 90 days to calculate my payments. After 90 days, I called again and was told they needed another 90 days to figure out my account because it seemed there was a consolidation error and all of my loans weren't counting towards my payoff. I asked who made this error and they blamed XXXX XXXX, my servicer in XX/XX/XXXX. They said XXXX XXXX was no longer in business so there was nothing I could do to address their error. 

I finally received a letter listing all of my qualifying payment details and the documentation said that most of my loans only had 6 or less  qualifying payments and that two loans had 14 qualifying payments so far. I have been working in public service full time since XX/XX/XXXX. I consolidated my loans in XX/XX/XXXX and I got on Income Based Repayment ( a qualifying plan for PSLF ) in XX/XX/XXXX ( according to XXXX XXXX ). I have made 73 payments from XX/XX/XXXX to present day and have always paid the exact amount my servicer requested ( which is set each year when I recertify and stays the same amount for 12 months ). In other words, I have consistently paid the amount the servicer ( s )  told me to pay. However, now XXXX XXXX is saying that most of my loan payments don't qualify because my monthly payments didn't cover all of my loans each month and that I may have been late on payments. Aside from a few forbearances, I have NEVER been late on a loan payment. The money is directly debited from my account on the same day every month. And there is no reason for my monthly payment to not cover all of my loans unless the servicer ( s ) made an error. I have NEVER received documentation stating that my payments were short or that they weren't covering what was due monthly. This is incredibly upsetting. I have only worked in public service for these 7 years to take advantage of this program. I am sick to my stomach in thinking that I have been signing over close to {$1000.00} a month ( now {$1000.00} ) for years and there may be no return on the investment of my time, energy, and dreams. I could have done a million other things with my career and youth, that would have brought me joy but instead I took the responsible route professionally, made payments regularly, all to have XXXX XXXX XXXX   tell me I won't be done with my payments until XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX to qualify. This is infuriating. 

BTW, when I called XXXX  XXXX XXXX today they said it will take another 90 days to get me a document that explains exactly what went wrong with my 73 payments. So that means I will have been asking for them to resolve this for almost a year with no clear explanations. That is unacceptable. 


XXXX XXXX Supervisor : XXXX # XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation