Consumer complaint received 2017-12-21
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: CA
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:
In the last 7 months, FedLoan Servicing has made several eggregious errors ( detailed below ) and has failed to provide written documentation of these errors/solutions in addition to inappropriately impacting my credit for errors that were not my own. Please read my case below - I have already been issued a formal apology from the Department of Education and assurance that XXXX would fix their errors, however, I am still being stonewalled by XXXX. Please see the details of my encounter with XXXX below : - XXXX XXXX : I submitted income based repayment recertification. I received notification from XXXX that my income based repayment recertification was received and being processed. 
- XXXX XXXX : I applied for PSLF. This transferred my loans from XXXX to XXXX. 
- XXXX XXXX : I emailed XXXX to say that I could not log onto my account to view my loans. They stated it would take 15-30 days for my account to be active. During this time, they removed 1/2 of my loans from income based repayment. This meant that XXXX were removed from the PAYE plan and placed on a 10 year non-adjusted payment plan. This generated a bill for ~ {$4000.00} per month. I was unable to view that this was happening because, as above, I could not log on to my account to view my loans and payments. 
- XXXX XXXX : XXXX XXXX messaged me via my online account to say that my loans were removed. I was unable to view this message as I still could not log into the online account. They did not mail or call me to notify me of this change despite the fact that I had alerted them to my inability to view anything on my online account. They again assured me that I would be able to view everything online in time. 
- XXXX XXXX, XXXX : XXXX capitalized {$15000.00} of interest into my principle balance without notifying me. 
- XXXX XXXX, XXXX : at this point I was expecting XXXX to direct debit the amount equal to my already agreed upon income based repayment plan that was established in XXXX XXXX and was under review for recertification for the following year. Instead, WITHOUT WARNING, XXXX direct debited the {$4000.00} non-income based payment from my account. 
- XXXX XXXX, XXXX : I spent countless hours on the phone with XXXX trying to understand what had happened. There was no way for me to get my {$4000.00} back and they informed me that " the XXXX loans that were not in PAYE were never in PAYE. '' They implied that my loans arrived 1/2 in PAYE and 1/2 in no adjusted repayment plan and continued to deny wrongdoing. I contacted XXXX XXXX 's office for help. XXXX XXXX XXXX from her office contacted the Department of Education. The Department of Education issued an apology and requested that XXXX put my loans in administrative forebearance in order to sort out the error. XXXX proceeded by putting my loans in a borrower-requested forebearance. The following day they sent me a bill for {$39000.00} with 1 day to pay. When I could not pay, they then capitalized {$39000.00} of interest into my principle balance. Both the above interest capitalization and this capitalization remain to be resolved. 
- XXXX XXXX : XXXX, at the request of XXXX. of XXXX and my congresswoman 's office, required me to submit income based repayment recertification again. 
- XXXX XXXX : 90 days after they inappropriately debited {$4000.00} they returned the money to my account. This prompted a series of late payment notifications for that {$4000.00} payment. They continued to threaten reporting to crediting agencies if I did not pay the {$4000.00} XXXX after they had approved the return of my money ). 
- XXXX XXXX : XXXX lost documentation of ALL of my prior payments and sent me late payment notifications for every payment. When I called, they said all of my payments since XXXX XXXX were marked as delinquent. They again threatened they would report me to crediting agencies. I have proof from my bank statements that I have made every payment on time and have not missed a single payment ( including the payment for {$4000.00} that was inappropriately charged ). 
- XXXX XXXX : I was informed on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX that my next payment was {$2000.00}. They stated my loans again had fallen out of income based repayment. They refused to acknowledge that this charge was in error until 1 day before it was due, again throwing me into a panic about how to pay this charge so as not to be marked late on any of my payments. 
- XXXX XXXX : despite frequent emails, they still have not addressed the capitalized interest so that interest continues to compound daily in my principle balance. 

I left a lucrative career path to become a pediatric subspecialist. I have already given up lost income during medical school in addition to the lost income potential for 8 years of pediatrics and subspecialty training. I work XXXX hour weeks and have been devoting my free time to calling this loan servicer extremely frequently rather than spending time doing things to take care of myself and ultimately take better care of my patients. The emotional harm and suffering this loan servicer has inflicted on my in the past 8 months is not negligible and they should be held accountable. Additionally, had I not had family financial support at the time, their direct debit of {$4000.00} would have resulted in my inability to pay my loans, pay for gas, buy groceries, etc. Their incompetence could have resulted in much worse financial consequences had I not had a back up plan. Many borrowers do not have a plan B and if XXXX were to treat them as they treated me it could result in enormous financial consequences for borrowers, not limited to bankruptcy and homelessness. 

Ultimately, I have no recourse because I can not move my loans to another servicer. This loan servicer has an unfair monopoly and unfair control over the PSLF borrowers. They have not exercised this unfair advantage prudently.

Please let me know your thoughts and in what ways you may be able to help. 
Thank you for your time

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation