Consumer complaint received 2021-05-26
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: OR
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:
I am in the public service student loan forgiveness program for more than a decade. According to MyFedLoan, my servicer, thirty-one of my payments do not count. 

I am trying to be specific with the numbers, but it is difficult since MyFedLoan seems to have a chronic problem getting back to me with updates. They stopped counting more than a year ago for unknown reasons. I have been submitting paperwork since asking for an update via forms as instructed, with usually no response. I might wait weeks or months and call, only to find out that they dismissed the letter and neglected to inform me. The reason for the dismissal is always an excuse as to why my paperwork did not count. The reasons the paperwork I submitted does not count have included : there is a visible staple hole in one of the papers and there was a paperclip submitted. The last time I called, XX/XX/XXXX, the person on the phone told me that my paperwork was not accepted because there was no signature. When she looked at it, she confirmed that there was, indeed, a signature on the paper. 

As a result of this and other conduct that is obviously shady, I can only assume that I am being treated unfairly and possibly unlawfully. The reasons that many of my more than thirty payments supposedly dont count rests on the premise that I was paying my last student loan company for fun, as there was an administrative forbearance and my payments didnt count. When asked for information about this, they claim to have none. While it may be true they have no further information from the previous company, surely it seems unlikely that someone would make payments for no reason at all. If there is no more information to be had, why presume the most unlikely scenario? 

Other payments are said to have been made too late. I know that, as an educator that made considerably less money during the summers and winters, I would frequently pay ahead. For instance, in XXXX I would pay for XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX as well as XXXX. I believe that it is very likely that many of these forward payments are being counted dishonestly in such a way as to make a claim that I am behind, instead of ahead, so that each payment is offset in a way that they can discount. 

In the past, years ago when they would allow me to submit the paperwork to see what I owed, I was told that paying ahead did not count. I have since found documentation showing that it in fact does. 

Finally, on the XX/XX/XXXX call, the agent could not find any reason at all why between 15-20 payments did not count. This was elevated along with my signed paperwork that was dismissed as not having been signed. When asked how long it would take to hear back, I was told it was impossible to say. 

I am not looking for anything that I am not entitled to. I have been paying for this ten-year plan for more than ten years. Its outrageous to assume that these many payments do not qualify. Its also obscene that I can not get any further information because MyFedLoan is discounting my requests for petty reasons, and its unconscionable that I can not get an answer as to when, or how, any of this will be addressedlet alone resolved. 

At this point, I can only beg to count enough of the more than thirty payments to get me out of this trap, the trap I should have been released from years ago.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief