Consumer complaint received 2017-05-03
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: CA
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, To begin with the FedLoan website can be very confusing when  XXXX  is trying to determine which  Income Based Plan  to apply for. They have very similar options being : " Income Driven Repayment '', " Income Sensitive Repayment Request '' and then " Repayment Plan Request '' as one can see, they can all mean the same thing. Very confusing indeed ; I suggest to Fedloans ; changing the language and giving more detail about what they all truly mean.     But mainly I am writing today about the  XXXX  issues concerning the  Income Driven Repayment  plan I applied for in  XXXX . The first issue is about the forbearance request on page  XXXX  : I submitted the required documents and received mail from FedLoan that was very confusing and to this day never informed of the amount I am due to pay. I was informed that this delay of   XXXX    months is due to a box I checked on page  XXXX  under Section  XXXX  Borrower Requests. I was told by y FedLoans t hat due to me requesting a 1 month forbearance in this section ; that my application was delayed in processing. This delay has caused extreme stress and confusion. A suggestion would be for  FedLoans to  mention in  Section   XXXX , that a forbearance request will cause such a delay.     The Second issue is about the mail in my  Fedloan Inbox  that was there  XXXX  day and gone the next. This caused me great mental distress, anxiety and frustration. On   XXXX   XXXX   XXXX     I received a letter in my inbox saying that they did not receive my paperwork for the  IDR  plan and that I needed to submit my paperwork to get this plan. I sent an email via their site detailing that I did apply for the plan in  XXXX  and that a payment was due on   XXXX   XXXX   which I was planing to pay ; and I mentioned that I had talked with several of their workers about my IDR application in addition to having the completed application and supporting documents uploaded to m y Fedloan a ccount for months.     On  XXXX   XXXX , I could not find the  XXXX   XXXX  letter in my paperless inbox, nor any email mentioning it or the letter I wrote back to them about their letter. I called their office to get clarity ; they also could not find such a letter ; and told me that there was not a way to take back a letter once they send it to my inbox. Did I dream it? I thought I went crazy. Then I looked through my computer and found the letter, luckily I had downloaded it. I called  Fedloan back and spoke with a different person. She looked around more but still did not find it within my account ; she said that she searched for it in a different way and located a letter sent to me from the IDR department and that it was sent as a mistake. The Fedloan employee I spoke to was very surprised that it was taken back from my inbox without a trace ( until she traced it ) ; she was also helpful and empathetic. But wow did this issue, of someone at Fedloans trying to delete a letter sent to me, make me even more wary of dealing with Fedloans.      So No, I was not crazy ; I did get a letter on   XXXX   XXXX   telling me I needed to send more documents for eligibility to the  IDR plan ; causing me extreme stress ; but NO ONE at Fedloan  acknowledged getting my response email to their mistake ; nor an apology or even a correction ; but it appears they tried to hide their mistake even . Fedloans constantly sends out the most confusing letters but fails to send out an apology or a simple " we made a mistake '' letter ; if I had not looked into this issue the way I did ; imagine the additional amount of time and stress it would have caused. Fedloans took that " mistake '' letter out of my inbox when they could have  simply left it there and sent another letter explaining the error and apologizing. It appears as if they were trying to hide the mistake. This is unconscionable.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief