Consumer complaint received 2022-02-19
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: IN
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Trouble with how payments are being handled

Complaint:
Good Afternoon, I found your helpful article published by XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX when searching for help regarding my student loans and Public Service Loan Forgiveness. 

I currently have consolidated federal loans serviced via FedLoan Servicing. They previously informed me that they intend to cease servicing this loan, but that has yet to occur. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I filed a PSLF application to determine if I am currently eligible for loan forgiveness, and if not, how close I am to forgiveness. I followed up multiple times before eventually receiving my results on XX/XX/XXXX. These results claimed that I have only between 20 and 23 qualifying payments, even though I have been working in public service for over 12 years, and have never been late with a payment when not in deferment. I was shocked. The PSLF letter had no breakdown of qualifying and non-qualifying payments, but I did find such a breakdown elsewhere on their website under a section entitled " Public Service Loan Forgiveness ( PSLF ) Payment Tracking. '' Here, I found 20 payments noted as " ineligible payment, '' presumably because they were not under a qualified payment plan at the time, but that all should count now. I also found big gaps where nothing showed as either qualifying or non-qualifying, included only one month addressed before XX/XX/XXXX ( XX/XX/XXXX shows as non-qualifying ). There are only 2 payments before 2019 listed as qualifying, and looking at the wide dispersal of recent qualifying payments it doesn't appear that the new guidelines have been applied at all. 

I called their consumer helpline, and the representative appeared to have a script she would read any time I would refer to the President 's recent change in how these loans are applied for PSLF purposes, informing me that " there has been no change to the federal law. '' Once we got past that and I tried to address the discrepancies, she made general statements that I must have been not employed with a qualifying employer or on deferment for the ineligible times. When I pointed out the " ineligible payment '' notations on times that I was clearly employed with a documented eligible employer and had not paid late, she said that the " recent interpretation '' of the PSLF guidelines may not have been applied there. When I asked about the years of missing data, she said that perhaps they hadn't serviced my loans then. When I asked how to remedy all of this, she suggested I file another PSLF application closer to the XXXX deadline. Considering it took almost 3 months for this calculation to occur, and the multiple problems contained therein, I don't feel that is a viable option. 

I have over 90,0000 in student loan debt riding on this decision and it impacts every aspect of my life, from current career choices to future financial budgeting. I don't know if these loans should be forgiven now, in months, or in years, and there doesn't seem to be a means to determine that. I was searching for private entities to investigate this on my behalf when I came across your article. Obviously the idea of going further into debt to pay someone to advocate on my behalf isn't appealing, but I feel like I'm running into dead ends everywhere else. I would be so grateful if you can help me find some clarity.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief