Consumer complaint received 2016-08-22
Company: Nelnet, Inc.
State: CA
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:
I was a grad student from XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX when I graduated and then again from XX/XX/XXXX - XX/XX/XXXX when I graduated with a XXXX XXXX degree. My loan servicer was Nelnet until XXXX/XXXX/XXXX. They serviced XXXX loans including XXXX XXXX consolidation loans totaling more than $ XXXX. XX/XX/XXXX, I requested that Nelnet take my loans out of in-school deferment and put them into repayment status. I received notice on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX that my " eligible '' loans were being put on an XXXX plan with a {$0.00} payment for 12 months beginning XXXX/XXXX/XXXX. ( I was never told why some loans were eligible and some loans were n't. ) This action should have given me 12 months of qualifying payments for PSLF, however I was notified in XXXX XXXX that Nelnet never put my loans into repayment XX/XX/XXXX. They explained to me that their computer system overrode the repayment request and kicked my loans back into in-school deferment status. I was told that in order to keep my loans in repayment status, I would have had to call every month to have the in-school deferment status manually overridden. This process was never explained to me. Furthermore, it took more than 6 months and numerous calls before an agent from Nelnet was finally able to explain this information to me. 
I started calling Nelnet in XX/XX/XXXX or XX/XX/XXXX to find out whether or not consolidating my remaining loans ( those that were not included on the {$0.00} IBR payment plan from XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX ) was a good financial plan for me. I asked how much interest I would pay if I consolidated the remaining loans versus if I did n't consolidate based on ten years of payments ( due to the fact that I will qualify for PSLF. ) Nelnet was not able to tell me how much interest I would pay if I did n't consolidate. They were only able to tell me how much I would pay if I did consolidate. They referred me to other websites and resources to find out about consolidation. In the meantime, I contacted Nelnet numerous times to verify exactly which loans had been included on the {$0.00} IBR payment plan from XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX so I would not include them in the consolidation calculations and lose the qualifying payments on those loans. Different Nelnet agents told me different loan numbers and they were not able to tell me which loan numbers on their site corresponded with the account numbers on studentloans.gov. ( The loan amounts, account numbers, and disbursement dates did n't exactly match up with the information on studentloans.gov, the website I was using to calculate consolidation. ) Finally, I asked if Nelnet could just send me the list of loans in writing that had been included on the {$0.00} XXXX payment plan from XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX and/or send me the list of qualifying payments for all of my loans. Nelnet told me to go into my account and manually count the number of qualifying payments I had made on my loans. The issue with this method was they did not have any information from XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX. Exasperated with Nelnet, I filled out the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Employment Verification form with XXXX so I could have my loans transferred to them and they could verify my payment history. My loans were transferred to XXXX in XXXX but they also have the wrong payment history ( I am still waiting for XXXX to calculate my correct qualifying payments. ) When I found out XXXX also had the wrong payment history, I started calling Nelnet again to try to confirm my prior payment history. That is when an agent told me for the first time that my loans with the {$0.00} XXXX from XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX had never officially been put into repayment.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation