Consumer complaint received 2022-08-23
Company: Maximus Education, LLC dba Aidvantage
State: IL
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:
My student loans were transferred from XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) to AidVantage in XXXX of last year. The transfer of information took much longer than they initially indicated it would. Once my information finally transferred over my balance was incorrect as was the number of payments that I had left and the amount of said payments. 

I'm on a graduated repayment plan so I make 24 payments at a certain amount and then they increase by ~20 % every 2 years. I elected out of the COVID forbearance option with my old servicer ( XXXX XXXX ) when it initially went into place and continued making payments for a year into the COVID forbearance period. So, I made 13 payments between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX before I elected back into the COVID forbearance. My loans graduate to the next payment amount every two years on XX/XX/XXXX of said year. So on XX/XX/XXXX I completed the remaining payments in step 3 of my repayment plan ( total payment amount was {$300.00} at that step of the repayment plan ) and on XX/XX/XXXX I " graduated '' to the next payment amount ( " step 4 '' ) and my monthly payments increased to {$390.00} as per my repayment plan. I made 5 payments at the {$390.00} ( XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX ) before I called XXXX XXXX to elect back in to the COVID payment pause. 

I got a notice on XX/XX/XXXX from XXXX XXXX that my loans would be transferred to Navient on or around XX/XX/XXXX. This notice indicated my the current balance of my loans being transferred as of the date of the letter was {$15000.00}, which included a total principal balance for all of my loans of {$15000.00} and an outstanding accrued interest balance of {$0.00}. These balances matched the last Monthly Direct Debit Bill that I had received from XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I got a letter that my loans had been transferred to Navient but that they were being reassigned to Adivantage. So, Navient was just briefly holding my loans. The notices I got from Navient on XX/XX/XXXX, detailed out the disbursement date, original principal, unpaid principal, interest rate ( showing 0 % on all of my loans due to the COVID relief measure that were still in place ), and loan program of each of my 8 student loans. The total balance of my loans were correct and matched the information I had from XXXX XXXX. In addition to the welcome letters I received from Navient on XX/XX/XXXX, I also received another letter with the same date ( XX/XX/XXXX ) to notify me that I had successfully confirmed my Auto Pay enrollment, even though I had done nothing to initiate that and had never confirmed said Auto Pay. I had used AutoPay with XXXX XXXX, but I hadn't done anything to confirm that autopay with Navient. This letter also detailed out disbursement date, original principal, unpaid principal, interest rate and loan program of each of my 8 student loans. However, on this autopay confirmation letter it only listed the interest rate of 1 out of the 8 loans at 0.000 %. The other 7 loans stated interest rates between 3.400 % and 6.800 %. I questioned why those 7 loans weren't listed at XXXX and called Navient and they said it was essentially just a clerical error and that all of my loans ' interest rates were in fact at 0.000 % due to the payment pause. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I received a welcome letter from Aidvantage stating my loans had been moved over to Aidvantage. In this letter my total balance was no longer correct as they were showing I had a small unpaid interest amount on all 8 of my student loans. Therefore, my total outstanding balance was now {$4.00} higher than it was when my loans left XXXX XXXX. After MANY calls to Aidvantage in XX/XX/XXXX and XXXX they finally got the accrued interest balance corrected to {$0.00} on each loan and my total balance for my loans was correct. However, my online account had now been updated with information regarding the number of payments I had remaining and the amount of said payments and this information was incorrect. 

Aidvantage ishows that I have 9 payments remaining at {$300.00} and 24 payments at the {$390.00} amount, even though I completed the 24 payments of the {$300.00} amount on XX/XX/XXXX and subsequently graduated to the {$390.00} payment amount for my payment due on XX/XX/XXXX and made 5 payments at that {$390.00} amount between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX. 

I continued contacting them on a regular basis throughout XXXX as I was concerned that my payment amount would be wrong when the pause was set to end in XX/XX/XXXX. They continued to say that all of my information still hadn't transferred over yet so they were unable to see it in their system and they couldn't see any of the history on any of my loans but that by XX/XX/XXXX they should have everything transferred over. 

The payment freeze was once again extended, and while they assured me they were looking into the problem they didn't seem very concerned and seemed to think that it would correct itself once my account history finally transferred over. After XX/XX/XXXX came and went I contacted them once again and they told me they were contacting IT to look into it. I was now told that the information should transfer over by XXXX. And that they would keep an eye on it and follow up with me once they heard more from IT. XXXX came and went and they still hadn't contacted me and the number of payments remaining and the amount of those payments was still incorrect in my online account, so I followed up with them once again. Customer service still didn't have any answers about the discrepancies with my payments. 

During all of these phone calls they continued to reassure me that it would be fixed and all of my information ( i.e. payment history etc. ) would start showing up in my account before the payment pause ended as we now had many months before that happened. So, I left it alone for a few months. 

2 weeks ago I decided to log in to see if my payment history had finally be transferred over and if it was showing up in my online account since we are getting close to the current payment pause expiring, and I found that after 8 months of my loans being with Aidvantage and at least 10 phone calls to their customer service, probably more, the number of payments I have remaining and the amount of said payments is still incorrect even though my balance was corrected back in XXXX. 

So, once again I called their customer service and explained my situation and that the payments Aidvantage shows that I have remaining and the amount of said payments is incorrect. She tried to look into it and told me that she didn't have access to my payment history and was unsure why all of my account information still hadn't transferred over after my loans had been with Aidvantage for 8 months. She then asked if I had proof of said payments through bank statements and if I did to upload the proof of those payments through their online document portal. 

So I downloaded 29 months worth of bank statements, redacted them only to show my student loan payments, and attempted to upload them to their portal. However, there online document upload feature will not allow me to upload the file. I have attempted to upload it on 2 different computers multiple times over the last week and I continue to get an error message that states, " We apologize that our system is experiencing issues in processing your request. You may try again now or click the Cancel button below to continue without uploading documents at this time. Thank you for your patience as we research this issue. '' So even though I've attempted to be proactive about this, by notifying them of the issue immediately after my loans transferred and continuing to follow up with them after they've failed to follow up with me like they've stated they would on our calls, we are now a little over a week from the payment pause ending and I am once again going to have to call customer service and go round and round on the issue of the number of payments I have remaining and the amount of said payments being incorrect. 

Furthermore, I think it's important to note. I did not just continue to make payments with XXXX XXXX during the pause while my loans were classified as in forbearance. When the payment pause was announced XXXX XXXX automatically put all of our loans into forbearance and sent out letters stating that we'd need to call and elect out of it. I specifically called them and elected out of the forbearance and then continued to make 13 months of payments before then calling them to elect back in to the forbearance after my XX/XX/XXXX payment was made. My loans were actively in repayment while I was making the payments. They even increased automatically to the {$390.00} payment amount for my payment due on XX/XX/XXXX like they were supposed to. So this is not an issue of me making payments even though my loans were classified as in forbearance.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation