Consumer complaint received 2021-01-22
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: WI
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:
I was an XXXX volunteer from XX/XX/XXXX - XX/XX/XXXX. I held my loans in forbearance during this time. There is a special arrangement with XXXX volunteers who seek to apply for the PSLF program where after the XXXX service contract ends, a retroactive calculation can be made for what the monthly payments would have been over the XXXX service period, once the loans were out of grace period ( XXXX XXXX - XXXX. XXXX ). Based on this calculation, the XXXX volunteer can make those payments retroactively, using their Segal Education Award, and have those payments count as qualifying payments toward their PSLF ( even though it was in forbearance originally ). I went through this process and was told that my qualifying monthly payments would be $ XXXXmonth over the XXXX service and submitted an employment verification form at that time ( late XXXX ). There was an issue with the EIN. I moved abroad over this period and was unable to resolve the issue myself. I had my mother ( who had financial power of attorney at the time ) contact Fedloan about this issue. They would not recognize the notarized POA document provided and the issue went unresolved ( they did not approve the form since it was incomplete and therefore the PSLF payments were not accepted ). Once I returned from abroad ( XX/XX/XXXX ), I brought back the issue, and tried submitting the EIN to get the payments approved. I was told that it could not be approved because the 90 period had passed for the employment verification form and that it was a void document. They recommended I resubmit a new employment verification form. When I did so, they said that the employment qualified, but the payments did not. COntrary to the information I was provided in XXXX, they told me that they had to recalculate the payments based on a standard repayment plan and not the income driven repayment plan originally used to calculate my monthly payments. As such, they provided me with a recalculated repayment total over the span of XXXX XXXX - XXXX. XXXX ( totalling {$2200.00} ). I then made this payment using my Segal award, on the information that this would result in the approval of my qualifying payments over that period of time. I received my updated qualifying payments toward the PSLF after this time, but the payment was not recognized. I submitted a review of the qualifying payments on XX/XX/XXXX and have yet to hear back regarding this issue. To date, I have been trying to resolve this issue for three and a half years, my legal POA was denied access and ability to manage my financial affairs, information regarding my qualifying PSLF payments has changed, I was coerced into paying {$2200.00} out of my Segal award with not results ( in contradiction to previous information provided from Fedloan ), have spent countless hours on the phone trying to resolve this issue, and have no information on a timeline of when the present review will be determined.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief