Consumer complaint received 2020-04-22
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: MD
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 have 2 graduate student loans that were a FFEL consolidation done in XXXX. I made payments on them for over 17 years. The entire time that I have made these payments I worked in XXXX XXXX for various public XXXX  XXXX. My first loan server company was XXXX, and I was told on numerous occasions in XXXX and beyond that my loan payments would count towards the 120 payments required to seek loan forgiveness under PSLF. In XXXX, my loans were transferred to XXXX in what has been considered a consolidation. I have no recollection of this being a consolidation, I was in deferment or forbearance and then when I started to pay again the loans were transferred to XXXX. Again, XXXX told me on numerous occasions that my payments would be credited to PSLF after I make the 120 payments. 
In XXXX, I was led to believe that I had applied for PSLF. I opened a FSA account, researched my loans, saw that they were direct loans, contacted a PHEAA and they referred me to FedLoan who told me on multiple phone calls, send in your employment certifications and once they are approved for the 10 years then you will get Loan Forgiveness. At the time in XXXX, I was not employed. I had worked for 10 years at 5 consecutive XXXX XXXX employers from XXXX. I sent in all 5 employers. I received 3 conflicting letters, saying none of employers qualified, then I received another letter stating 4 employers qualified. I wrote FedLoan a letter complaining that my last employer was not certified and I found multiple mistakes in their conflicting letters to me. I never heard back from FedLoan. I even requested that my loans stay with XXXX  because I thought Fed Loan was a scam incompetent company. FedLoan took over my loans anyway and I continued to pay every month from XXXX-present. FedLoan FAILED to ADDRESS MY Complaint in XXXX when I was applying for loan forgiveness. They kept telling me that since I was unemployed I could not get Loan Forgiveness even though I had 10 years of work in public interest XXXX. 

In XX/XX/XXXX I became re-employed in XXXX XXXX and I did research on the PSLF program and found out that there was a new TEPSLF program. I contacted Fed Loan again got conflicting information, was told my " graduated payments '' did not count. I filed a complaint with Federal Aid Feedback and was contacted by FedLoan again. To me this is a complete conflict of interest. I requested an appeal/investigation into FedLoan and FSA sends me right back to them. 

This time, FedLoan fails to accept any of my payments to count towards loan forgiveness. On my online account it states I have 0 payments for PSLF yet TEPSLF specifically states " graduated payments '' count. Instead of updating my account to calculate the payments that I have made since XXXX under the graduated payment plan, the FedLoan rep tells me no accounting can be done of my payments because 120 payments have not been made. They state my case ( appeal/investigation ) will be considered closed. Again, no investigation into these lies and inability to credit my account for the payments.

I emailed FedLoan Rep back and requested an audit of my payments and requested that payments that I made towards loan forgiveness under TEPSLF be listed on my online account with them. They refused stating that I did not reach the 120 payments yet and therefore, no audit will be done. This is incorrect. 
XXXX XXXX told Congress that she would streamline the TEPSLF process and an audit can be done at any time. 
My issues are as follows : 1. My payments made under the " graduated '' payment plan from XXXX do in fact count under TEPSLF and should be entered into my online account. The Cares Act has also established that the payments that would have been made XX/XX/XXXX thru XX/XX/XXXX also count towards XXXX XXXX   forgiveness. I want a full accounting of my payments made from XXXX on my account. I want them listed accurately on my online account with FedLoan Servicing so that there is NO CONFUSION about how many payments I have made. 

2. My payments made to loan server XXXX for the FFEL consolidation was a federal loan and never involved a parent plus or private monies. The server was private but it was always federal money and thus, I am requesting the payments that I made from XX/XX/XXXX payments be counted towards TEPSLF because I was told that they would by XXXX and FedLoan is permitted do an override credit for these payments as it has been done before for many student debtors when the debtor was misled over and over my the loan server. The filing of the complaint to FSA feedback system was suppose to address this override credit issue, yet that never happened because my complaint to FSA feedback was forwarded back to FedLoan who failed to address this. 

FedLoan keeps treating a PSLF denial as the only way to address these issues. Congress specifically came up with TEPSLF and FedLoan does not understand how to this new program and continues to wrongfully deny debtors forgiveness and then fails to provide the denied debtor the avenue for appeal even when asked over and over for it.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation