Consumer complaint received 2023-10-04
Company: MOHELA
State: PA
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Problem with customer service

Complaint:
Back at the end of XXXX  I mailed my PSLF form to MOHELA. I never received any sort of communication from them informing me that my application was received or that my loan was being transferred to them or that my application was processed or anything else. I went ahead and created an account with their website anyway. 

Since the payments are supposed to be starting back up, I logged on XX/XX/XXXX to see if I needed to get anything set up for making payments. When I looked at my applications, the ONLY application form that I ever sent, and therefore the ONLY application form they ever received, was marked as a duplicate on XX/XX/XXXX. How can the ONLY application form that has ever existed for my account be a duplicate? It's apparent that no one is actually looking at what they are working on and are just randomly marking applications as duplicates, probably so they don't have to bother with processing them to save time, which only creates more work for themselves when they have to figure out what went wrong. 

I then used their website to send them an email on XXXX  The website said I would receive an answer within 3 business days. Today, XXXX marks 6 business days, and I have yet to received even so much as an automated response telling me my message was received. 

So, todayXXXX XXXX, I sent the same exact message again, and I also noted that I would be submitting a formal complaint, as their service has been unacceptable. I want ALL correspondence with them to be in writing, as I simply do NOT trust them to competently handle anything, since I learned from various online forums that this is FAR from a unique problem, and I have no way to record any phone calls with them. Even if I did, it is impossible to get anyone on the phone. 

My PSLF form was put in the mail before the end of XX/XX/XXXX, so it was mailed into them in time. Now, it is nearly time for me to resubmit the annual PSLF form, and my first one was never even looked at. I will NOT be submitting that form before they process the one sent a year ago, because it would be a very real possibility that that form, too, would be marked as a duplicate. 

As I mentioned above, I have also seen in various online forums that this is NOT a unique problem. MOHELA has done this to THOUSANDS of PSLF forms. They also seem to almost never give consistent answers to people 's questions, and they take NINETY BUSINESS DAYS, or longer!, to process EVERY FORM. This is entirely unacceptable ; there is no reason for it to take so long, no matter how much corresondence, applications, etc. they are currently receiving. I can't even get my loan to be transferred to them because of this ; I shudder to think what it will be like once they finally are the ones handling my loan. 
To support my complaint, I have attached 5 screenshots from my MOHELA website account. 

The first is a screenshot of all forms for me received by MOHELA, showing that only 1 form was ever received by them ( which is correct ), but it was marked as a " Duplicate Form '', despite the fact that there is only 1 form total EVER submitted for me. 

The second screenshot is of my sent box in my messages area of my MOHELA account, showing the 2 sent message. 

The third and 4th screenshots are of the messages themselves, XXXX XXXX  the message I sent XX/XX/XXXX and XXXX XXXX the message I sent XXXX 

The fifth screenshot is of my MOHELA messages inbox, showing an empty inbox, clearly attesting to the fact that, despite it being twice the 3 business days I was told to wait for a response, I have yet to receive any sort of response from them.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation