Consumer complaint received 2017-03-23
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: WI
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:
On XX/XX/2014 I completed and submitted the employment certification program for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness ( PSLF ) program. My understanding was that completing and submitting the form would result in a determination on my eligibility for the PSLF program. 
I received a letter dated XX/XX/2014 from Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency ( PHEAA ) dba FedLoan Servicing indicating that " Your employment status qualifies you for participation in the PSLF Program for the certified employment time period ( s ) provided above. '' Additionally, the letter stated all of my U.S. Dept. of Education loans would be transferred to FedLoan which would allow me to " closely track ... progress toward eligibility for forgiveness. '' This led me to reasonably believe that I had met the eligibility of the program and that previous and subsequent payments would be reviewed and eligible for the PSLF program. 
I received four separate but nearly-identical letters dated XX/XX/2014 from FedLoan Servicing. Each letter had different loans listed. The letters stated my XXXX federal loans had been transferred from my existing servicers to FedLoan. I received two letters dated XX/XX/2014 from FedLoan indicating " eligibility for public service loan forgiveness ''. These letters indicated my payments were successful in counting towards the PSLF payments. However, these letters included eligibility information for XXXX of my loans. I received no letter or any information regarding the eligibility of the XXXX other loans. Because all my loans were transferred and I had received a blanket statement that my loans were eligible in a previous letter, I assumed that the third letter that listed my XXXX other loans had been lost in the mail. 
The minimal and/or unclear instructions on the PSLF employment certification form, the letters from FedLoan, the confusion of my loans being transferred, and the list of all my loans across all three transfer letters indicated to me that I had completed the PSLF process and my PSLF eligibility had been approved for all loans. 
Subsequently, I have submitted several PSLF employment eligibility forms to ensure my payments were counted during my continued public service employment. I received confirmation letters each time. However, each confirmation letter listed my loans in confusing terminology and numbers, some of which appeared to be proprietary to FedLoan. This made it difficult for me to ascertain which loans were being certified and which loans I actually had with FedLoan servicing when compared to the NDLS database. During each recertification period I assumed that each of my payments were going towards the PSLF program requirement of 120 on-time, qualifying payments for each of my XXXX loans. 
However, I recently received a paper bill that looked different from previous bills. Upon contacting XXXX, I was told that the paper bills had been updated with new information. Part of the new information now showed PSLF determination and qualifying payment count listed by loan. I was surprised to learn that XXXX of my loans were listed as NOT ELIGIBLE for the PSLF program. This was a shock. This was the first and only communication where FedLoan Servicing had provided explicit determination information regarding the eligibility of each of my loans on a single form and the first time that FedLoan Servicing had communicated to me that XXXX of my loans were ineligible for the program. Payments I have made on the ineligible loans that I thought were eligible for the PSLF program number at least 54. This is approximately 5 years of payments and thousands of dollars that I recently learned are not eligible for the PSLF program. 
Please see attached for supporting documentation. Thank you

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation