Consumer complaint received 2019-06-03
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: MA
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:
Good afternoon and that you for your oversight of such issues. The events follow. 

Since having my loan transferred from XXXX  to FedLoan Servicing, I have had the problem of receiving conflicting and contradictory information from FedLoan Servicing call staff, therefore it is now my practice that for any question or concern, I call at least 3 times in a row to vet if the information is accurate and if not, continue to call until I reach a majority opinion on the concern. 

Most recently, I was given misinformation regarding how to deal with a standard repayment amount billed to my account while my income-based repayment plan application was being processed. On XX/XX/XXXX after calling 3 times, I gathered enough information to understand that while my income-based repayment plan application was being processed, my account would temporarily have to be placed in a standard repayment plan and one staff member mentioned that I would have to be sure that forbearance was in place for the standard payment amount and that it would not disappear on its own, despite having been told multiple times prior ( on this call and many others ) that the process of forbearance and standard payment was automatic and did not require my attention after submitting an application for repayment plans. 

I called again on XX/XX/XXXX to address the XX/XX/XXXX bill but I was told the system could not generate it yet, and so I could not make any requests at that time regarding forbearance or reduced payments for the XX/XX/XXXX billing cycle. I was asked to call back in about 1.5 weeks for enough time to pass for the bill to be generated and for requests on that bill to be made. I was told if I called at least 8 days before the bill 's due date, I could make changes. So I waited, and in that time the bill was generated and set to be due XX/XX/XXXX. I called back on XX/XX/XXXX to request that a reduced payment and forbearance be applied to my XX/XX/XXXX standard payment ( which was in the amount of {$2600.00}, nearly 5 times greater than my previous income-based monthly bill of {$530.00} ). I called back several times. 

Again, I was not comfortable with the multiple staff members urging me to ignore my standard repayment for XX/XX/XXXX, despite their assurance that the forbearance scheduled for XX/XX/XXXX and its reduced payment amount of {$5.00} would cover both the month of XXXX and XXXX retroactively. It did not make sense to me and enough contradicting information was said that I wanted to receive explicit information in writing. I called back several more times between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX requesting to have these instructions to purposely default on a payment without other action to be placed in writing and sent to me. Several staff members were unable to do so, until by chance the call center queue paired me with a Forbearance Specialist. This person stated they would be able to generate an email stating the explicit instructions I should follow for the month of XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX. 

Upon receiving this information, I was able to confirm that I was being given misinformation, incorrect instructions and advice from the multiple FedLoan Servicing call staff members I had spoken to. This notice ( attached in step 3 ) states clearly that while my application for income-based repayment plans ( submitted XX/XX/XXXX ) is processed, I would incur two standard repayment plan bills and that each required separate forbearance requests. It confirms the forbearance scheduled for XX/XX/XXXX and its payment amount of {$5.00}, but it also states that I need to call to request a separate forbearance be placed in XXXX as well. This last point was what I kept trying to clarify with call center staff, and each time I was instructed to ignore the XX/XX/XXXX payment because the XX/XX/XXXX forbearance would cover both XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX billing periods. Had I not been adamant in having this information finally sent to me in writing, I would not have uncovered this crucial information that could potentially cause me to default on a payment and affect my credit score. And when I would ask about this concern, call staff members reassured me that while I would receive late notices and default on the XX/XX/XXXX payment ( per their recommendation ), it would not be reported to the credit bureaus. However, there was no written proof of this information and they were often resistant in providing written information to bolster their verbal responses. 

Overall, the misinformation given, unexplained delays in processing information, and unrequested actions taken on my account have delayed my ability to file for Public Student Loan Forgiveness by several months, despite continuing to work for a qualifying employer during that time. Their delays and processing times freeze ones account and do not allow for qualifying payments to be made during that time. I have only been with FedLoan Servicing since XX/XX/XXXX and by XX/XX/XXXX, in 7 months of dealing with them, I will have been unable to submit qualifying payments for 3 of those 7 months, despite working for a qualifying employer. That is wasted time and only prolonging the limitation on my employment options for the sake of loan forgiveness, and ultimately making it more difficult to achieve the 120 qualifying payments. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I would be happy to discuss further and provide further information if it can help this investigation. 

Best Regards, XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief