Consumer complaint received 2018-02-06
Company: Nelnet, Inc.
State: AZ
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan
Sub-issue: Can't get other flexible options for repaying your loan

Complaint:
I graduated from XXXX University in XXXX XX/XX/XXXX with over $ 50k in student loan debts. I started payments soon after and paid XXXX a total of {$8000.00} from savings and tax refunds over the next few months. Soon after learning I was not the only one that felt misguided by XXXX 's misleading students into financial debt lawsuit, I decided to answer the voicemails on student debt help in XX/XX/XXXX. The program I had called assisted former students with " applying for loan forgiveness program '' in where I could qualify for some if not all of my student loan debt. Of course, I only qualified for a portion of that amount and it was explained to me that after 20 years, the loan would be completely forgiven. This was a program Obama had approved to assist former students like me at the time. I was charged {$500.00} for this application, in which seemed okay at the time because they were helping me with " over $ 30k of the loan amount forgiven ''. I was told I was not to worry about making monthly payments until the time came when the loan was forgiven. At that time hearing these great news it did not seem like it was too good to be true because I was very relieved I qualified for such help. After the application date, I paid {$0.00} to this new loan which I then learned it was a simple loan consolidation that did in fact lower my full debt of the future accrued interest I would have owed. The way they spoke to me said nothing of this matter. I work in the XXXX XXXX, I know a loan when I see one. But the way the representatives spoke to me seemed more of a grant and an actual forgiveness program because I was one of the many affected by XXXX 's misleading students. Months after I was receiving several statements and I noticed an increasingly interest on the new loan of now $ XXXX, I decided to contact the program. I was again reassured not to worry, my monthly payments were of {$0.00} and the loan would fade over time after the 320 months had passed. I was relieved to know I was not scammed and it was in fact all true, my loans would be forgiven and taken care of. Later XX/XX/XXXX more notices came about updating my income on their site, I called again only to find out I was in an income-driven program after all, and it depended on my income on how much my monthly payment could be. After updating my income information and going through the income-driven plan, I was notified my monthly payments went from {$0.00} to $ XXXX/month. I was very confused at this point because I was re-affirmed twice that I qualified for the loan forgiveness program where my loan would be paid off. I am now over {$63000.00} in debt because of the accrued interest from the full year and a half no payments were being made. I feel defeated, and embarrassed to let all this debt carry on into even greater amount when I thought I had received helped from the government or whatever program that helped reduce student debt. Everything I was told was to comfort me at the beginning and fall into another loan debt with a different company who will now be gaining from my interest and there is nothing I can do about it now.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation