Consumer complaint received 2021-06-27
Company: Nelnet, Inc.
State: GA
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:
Hello upon receiving and reviewing a response from Great Lakes student loan summary there was an attempt to settle the alleged debt owed in its entirety in exchange for the original instrument of indebtedness in its original form. There have been 3 attempts to settle the alleged debt and Great lakes has refused to acknowledge or confirm to accept full payment of the alleged obligation in consideration of the delivery of the original instrument of indebtedness in its original form and has refused to show In a letter dated XX/XX/XXXX by Great Lakes from " XXXX ''. A copy of some Federal Direct Consolidation Loan Application and Promissory Note was provided on behalf of the Dept or Education. Your client, the Department of Education, claims that it holds legally binding promissory notes. Your client is responsible for validating such claims and the corresponding monetary demands. In accordance with case law, ( citing ) as assignees, the XXXX Agencies and other secondary holders step into the shoes of the lender from whom they have taken the promissory notes and are subject to any defenses that the student/obligee may assert against the assignor/lender. See Jackson v. Culinary School of Washington, 788 F. Supp. 1233, 1248 n.9 ( D.D.C. 1992 ), reversed on other grounds, 27 F.2d 573 ( D.C. Cir. 1994 ), vacated, 515 U.S. 1139, on reconsideration, 59 F.3d 354 ( D.C. Cir. 1995 ). 
Please note that the above citation is applicable to the time period during which college was attended and the alleged loans were made. Accordingly, I request that your client furnishes copies of the following documents : 1 ) Exact copies of the original documents that demonstrate that student loan lending and borrowing transactions did take place and the resulting debt exists.

During the dispute process neither you or your client have been able to show that I received any student loans either directly or indirectly, as tuition support. However, I did receive, Pell Grant and work-study financial aid that covered the cost of my attending College.

2 ) Copies of original documents that meet the Uniform Commercial Code ( UCC ) requirements for legally binding promissory note debt instruments.

The partial, front-end copies of the Application and Promissory Note documents that I filled in and your client has furnished, are financial aid applications. As such, these documents do not contain the following information that is necessary for a document to qualify as a legally binding promissory note : The exact principal amount that has to be paid. The partial copies of the Application and Promissory Note documents that were furnished to me state that the principal can be the amount printed in the loan application, or less, which then also includes XXXX ( {$0.00} ). 
Specific interest rate. 
Due date, and when and at what frequencies any money has to be paid. 
Further, a promissory note must be an unconditional promise to pay. The signed partial copy of the Application and Promissory Note financial aid document on its own is not an unconditional promise to pay, because the financial aid applicant may not receive any loan at all, or may receive the loan in the future at an unknown point in time, in which case the loan amount will be disclosed to the borrower in the Notice of Loan Guarantee and Disclosure Statement. 
That is, the Application and Promissory Note financial aid document does not state with certainty that the financial aid applicant will receive or has received any loan amount at all. If the applicant does not receive any loan amount, then there is no debt or debt obligation. 
Therefore, the Application and Promissory Note financial aid document on its own qualifies at the most as a conditional promise to pay, dependent on the content of the Notice of Loan Guarantee and Disclosure Statement and any other documents that the applicant will sign when receiving a loan. 
Accordingly, as was pointed out above, if your client claims that lending and borrowing transactions occurred, your client must furnish relevant signed documents that amount to legally binding promissory note debt instrument and to unconditional promise to pay.

3 ) Two-sided ( duplex ) exact copies of the two-sided original ( duplex ) Application and Promissory Note documents. 
If your client is the actual legal owner of the alleged debt, then your client must have the original, fully qualifying Promissory Note documents in its possession. So far, your client has furnished copies of the front end of the two-sided Application and Promissory Note documents, and separate copies of what could be the back ends of any persons documents. Nothing links these copies reliably together. There is no information on the separate copies of the back ends that relates them reliably with the front ends of the Application and Promissory Note documents. 
I do not accept the unidentifiable separate back ends as parts of the same documents. Any person who handled these documents could have made a copy of the front end of my financial aid applications, and the back end of another persons financial aid applications, and put them next to each other either accidentally or intentionally, claiming that these two copies belong together as one document.

Similarly, please do not send me two-sided copies that are made from copies. Such copies can be made by putting together two sheets of paper and copying both sides as if it were one document. Such act would be equivalent to forgery. 

Therefore, please have each document notary certified, stating that the document is the exact copy of the original document, not a copy of a copy, and the copy was made in the presence of the notary who certifies it, and which company or organization currently holds the original document. 
Based on the available information, qualifying Promissory Note documents in this case do not exist at all, and your client does not have even the original two-sided ( duplex ) financial aid Application and Promissory Note documents in its possession. Thus, based on the available information, your client has partial copies of irrelevant documents, created internal records and now claims ownership of an alleged debt. 
Without existence of the corresponding lending and borrowing transactions and the relevant documents. Such internal record creating does not create debt. 
I have requested debt validation in this case since XXXX of XXXX. Your client has repeatedly failed to validate that ( 1 ) I received student loans and that any debt actually exists, and ( 2 ) that your client holds valid legally binding promissory note debt instruments, and ( 3 ) that your client is the legal owner of the alleged debt. 
If your client is unable to validate the debt as requested above within 30 days of your receipt of this letter, you and your client must stop making any further monetary demands and state in writing that the Department of Education will not under any circumstances make any further demands regarding the specific previously claimed alleged debt, and will not authorize any individual, company, organization or institution to make any kinds of further demands regarding the specific previously claimed alleged debt.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation