Consumer complaint received 2019-10-25
Company: HEARTLAND PAYMENT SYSTEMS INC
State: CA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account status incorrect

Complaint:
In XXXX of XXXX, my federal Perkins loan ( a small, very low interest rate loan directly from my XXXX   school ) was transferred from the existing loan servicer, XXXX, to Heartland ECSI. I had been on auto-pay with XXXX for about five years, and simply didn't notice that the auto-payments had stopped, as they were very small. I got no notice of the transfer from XXXX to Heartland until XXXX of the next year, when I got a default notice from Heartland. Once I got the default notice, I called up Heartland, and they instructed me to file a forbearance request, back-dated to XXXX of XXXX ( which, presumably, was when the first payment to Heartland would have been due ). They said that this would resolve the late payment issue and any potential credit reporting. The only real consequence was that I would have to pay a bit more interest ( but the interest rate was very, very low, so I figured that was not a problem ). It sounded like they had this problem a lot, because the guy immediately knew what to do ( almost like he was reading from a script ) after I described the problem. They also set up auto-payment on their system on that first call. I sent in the forbearance request and thought the issue had been resolved. 

A month or two later I got another default notice. When I called Heartland, they denied ever receiving the forbearance request, and asked me to send it again. They again said that the forbearance request would eliminate the default and reverse any negative credit reports. I sent them the forbearance request, along with the fax confirmation sheet that proved they received it the first time, too. I've attached this document to this complaint. This time, the forbearance was granted and I stopped getting default notifications. Again I thought the issue had been resolved. 

In XXXX of XXXX, I refinanced my other student loans. My new lender asked me about these " late payments '' on the Perkins loan ( which I wasn't refinancing ), so I called Heartland again. They told me on the phone that the granting of the forbearance request should have resolved any late payment credit reporting issues, and entered a ticket to investigate why it had not. They also told me that my loan had been transferred yet again to a new loan servicer in XXXX, so I scrambled to set up payment with that loan servicer. I figured out later that Heartland had given the new loan servicer the wrong address, even after I had corrected my address with Heartland on two different occasions. Fortunately, I was able to set up payment with the new loan servicer in time to avoid yet more default notices. 

This year, I began applying for financing to purchase a home. My lender again asked me about " late payments '' on the Perkins loan that are somehow still reflected on my credit. Apparently Heartland never fixed its credit reporting issues, and my credit continues to incorrectly show late payments on the loan, despite three different Heartland representatives telling me on three different occasions that this issue had been resolved and that their credit reporting had been corrected.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation