Consumer complaint received 2017-12-06
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: CA
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Trouble with how payments are being handled

Complaint:
This is about an unfortunate dealing with AES. 
We sent a check to pay off my main loan ( XXXX ) of {$54000.00}. My Payments autopay on the XXXX of every month. I called XXXX XXXX to ask if they had received the check in which they showed nothing and stated even when they receive it that it wo n't update in the system for usually XXXX days. I asked what would happen to my autopay since it would have been considered late as they had nothing in the system in which the person stated any over payment would be credited back to me. So the auto debit went through and then the website did n't update that payoff until the XXXX of XXXX. 

I then call back asking how does the money get debited back to the account and then rep now states that it got auto debited to my other student loan ( XXXX ) which was done without my authorization and is their " policy. '' She stated that the loan actually went through on the XXXX of XXXX, the same day I had called, yet still had n't updated on the website. So she stated the payment automatically went to the other loan since it was actually paid off yet not updated on the website.The website currently had showed that I had a credit of {$400.00} on the {$54000.00} loan. I asked to talk to a manager and get ahold of a gentleman named XXXX. XXXX states that it would be fixed that be debited back to me by the next month. I get off with XXXX and since I was getting the runaround and he sounded unsure I decided to record more information about my loan. 

I logged in again I noticed that information had been modified to make it appear that I intentionally paid the " XXXX '' loan. I thankfully have been documenting everything on the website to show proof of the opposite. Where {$400.00} used to be now states only ( XXXX ) on the XXXX account and shows in payments where it used to state that I had put {$360.00} into the XXXX loan has now been switched to the XXXX loan. You can obviously tell it was done in error as {$360.00} had been the consistent pattern of payment for the XXXX loan each month. I then write them stating that needs to be fixed and almost appears as fraud as well as unfair business practices. They then state that it is in review but are now again stating that my {$360.00} payment was paid before the payoff and went through properly and now does n't even coincide with their own website. They have given me different answers everytime I communicate with them as what they wrote shows even another issue of my account. 
" Since the balance on the loan was not {$0.00} at the time the debit process took place, the Direct Debit was process correctly. Now that the XXXX loan is paid in full, Direct Debit should not debit for this loan. '' This would be great except there are more possibly deceiving business practices at play. If you were to go to my main page at the moment it states that {$500.00} will be auto debited on the XXXX of XXXX ( A combined amount of both existing and paid off loan ). If you go to a different tab " payments and billing '' it states that only XXXX is going to be auto debited. I asked for a 100 % straight answer and stated that the website states two different things and I have now yet to get an answer back. I have saved all information showing these variances with AES along with communications and can not imagine what others go through with this company but would love some help and am at the point of where I might need to take this further than I prefer.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation