Consumer complaint received 2017-04-15
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: AP
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with my lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Received bad information about my loan

Complaint:
I graduated with a XXXX in XXXX. I started to make my payments after a 6 month grace period. I was making $ XXXX a year at that point and was a single mother of an infant/toddler. I then attended graduate school, graduating in XXXX. It was difficult keeping track of all the payments ( with XXXX ) and I contacted them to ask for help. I was advised to consolidate my loans. Which at the time seemed like a great idea to only have to have one payment. My loans at that time I believe were around $ XXXX. What they neglected to inform me of was that once I consolidated those loans, I would forever be locked in the interest rate- which was XXXX %. I paid my loans and took deferments when I could n't make ends meet. Over those deferments, my student loans began to double and ultimately triple even when I was making payments. There were times where I was making payments that were more than a mortgage payment. I am a teacher. My income has never been very high. My loans were sold to other companies over the course of the years and my interest will never be lower than XXXX %. I had other companies promising to help alleviate my student loan burden- but that never took place. At XXXX point a few years back I was on the phone to my student loan company and I was sobbing because I could barely make ends meet. They put me through into FedLoan Servicing. I was put into an income sensitive program. And applied for loan forgiveness to make XXXX " qualifying '' payments starting in XXXX. I was checking my qualifying payments and they did n't match to the amount of payments that I had made. I made numerous calls to them and yet it just seemed like they could n't figure things out. Finally they tell me that because I had rounded out my payments ( for instance, instead of paying {$280.00} a month, I paid an even {$300.00} ) that they had moved me into " pay ahead '' status and therefore my payments were not qualifying. I emailed and called several times to ask for clarification as to what was going on. It was deceptive. I did not ask to be switched to a non qualifying plan, and although I asked over and over, the answers I got were seemingly purposefully confusing. I asked to speak to a supervisor at XXXX point and was told that I was n't allowed to speak to anyone in a supervisory position. I had to send a written request to ask them to stop processing my payments through a program that I did n't ask for nor even knew about. All that time I thought my payments were going towards " qualifying '' payments. Now every year I have to reapply for employment verification and even though I work for the same federal government agency ( although in different locations ) they initially reject my employment verification for such reasons as a discrepancy in the hire date. My hire date says XXXX on all my paperwork but it also indicates that my first date of on the job was the XXXX. Which anyone can understand is I was hired on XXXX. They also reject my supervisors phone number each year because either a. ) it 's a government DSN number or not DSN but then an overseas number ( I am a teacher working overseas with XXXX at an XXXX public school. ) I am so angry that my student loans are over $ XXXX! I am really angry that dealing with FedLoan servicing is constantly a struggle. They have been deceptive, incompetent and seem to purposefully lead borrowers a stray so that I will never reach the XXXX payment status. I am XXXX old. I have been an indentured student almost my entire adult life. I ca n't even help my own kids with paying for college. This has robbed me and been a huge burden on me and my family. I have reams of emails with evidence of the ineptitude and incompetence, as well as the surprises and misleading information they perpetuate. Help! What can I do? This is appalling and should be changed!

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation