Consumer complaint received 2016-05-23
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: NC
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with my lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Trouble with how payments are handled

Complaint:
In XX/XX/2015, I consolidated some of my loans and had them transferred to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX servicing. After consolidation, my IBR payment through XXXX ( XXXX ) remained the same and a payment in the same amount was added to my consolidated loans on XXXX. Essentially my total payment was double because XXXX loan servicers were charging me my total IBR payment. To avoid the double payment, I had the consolidated loans put on forbearance until all of my loans were pulled over to XXXX servicing. At the beginning of this year, the rest of my loans were pulled over to XXXX. A little before this, I also reapplied for an income-based repayment plan. This application was accepted and sent to both of my loan servicers, XXXX and XXXX. XXXX automatically updated my repayment amount to reflect my new application ; however, XXXX did not. By XXXX, I realized they were not going to automatically apply the new repayment plan to my account, so I called and requested that the XXXX consolidated loans be taken out of forbearance. In early XXXX this occurred. However, when I received my XXXX bill, the payment for the consolidated loans was equal to the 10-yr payoff and not an income-based amount. When I called to find out why this was, the associated told me that I had to pay a 1-time " opt-out '' payment because I was switching plans. [ Aside : Unbeknownst to me, I was eligible for the new revised XXXX plan, and was switched to it, resulting in the " opt-out '' payment ]. After identifying the switch in plans as the reason for the increased payment, the associate told me my payment amount would be switched to the income-based amount in XXXX. Unfortunately, when I received the XXXX bill, the payment amount was still the XXXX repayment amount. I immediately called XXXX and after get bounced around a couple associates, a supervisor informed me that the associate I spoke with the previous time I called had not take the proper steps to get my account switched over. He then told me he would have my plan corrected and switched over to the correct payment amount. Two days later I received an email informing me my plan had been switched over ; however, this would not take effect until the XXXX XXXX meaning that they were still billing me for an extra {$370.00} that month. I again called to XXXX, got bounced around a little, and was able to finally explain the situation to a supervisor. This time, he told me he would put in a request to have this fixed but that it might take XXXX10 business days and that he could n't guarantee it would be fixed. However, he said if not my account would be placed on an administrative forbearance that would not count against my total allowable forbearance time. My account is now due and this has not been fixed. I spoke with another supervisor today and she stated that this would be submitted to a review board that would review the case and get back to me by XXXX to inform me if I could be retroactively credited. I also asked to speak with her manager, and she said a team lead would call me tomorrow. Anything you can do to help would be beneficial. Thanks

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation