Consumer complaint received 2017-08-18
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: MT
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:
The past two years with Fedloan Servicing have been a nightmare. I am enrolled in the PSLF program and I have regularly provided updated Employment Certification forms. I have worked for a XXXX XXXX or XXXX XXXX since leaving school in XX/XX/XXXX. I have made payments diligently, sometimes up to {$1300.00} a month. In XX/XX/XXXX I was informed by the University XXXX  XXXX that one of my loans, {$2000.00}, was in collections. I was confused and upset because I had never heard about it and all of my loans are lumped together under Fedloan. I contacted Fedloan, and they quickly and efficiently informed me that they would correct the error and add the loan to the rest of them, no problem, no more collections. I happily accepted. Shortly thereafter, I received notification that all of my prior payments under PSLF had been erased because I had restarted all of my loans during a consolidation. This was news to me, and I was devastated. Five years of qualifying payments down the drain. Almost half way to my 120. So I started over. It reshaped my entire career path and all of my future plans. Everything set back 10 years instead of just on hold for 5 more. Then this spring I received the annual notice that it was time to recertify my IDR plan. So I promptly submitted my tax return and pay stubs. Then waited. I was told that my documentation was incomplete. So I resubmitted it. I mailed it and faxed it, just to be safe. Then I waited. I kept making payments. Then I was told that my IDR was denied and I was on a standard repayment plan. I was in shock. I called. I emailed. I cried. I explained OVER and OVER that a standard repayment was more than my paycheck. Then they told me that I had made a mistake on my IDR form, I had requested to be put on a different type of repayment plan, so this whole thing was my fault. ( I had n't, I did n't. ) So I submitted the form again. By now it was four months into a process that should have taken a day. I kept making payments. Finally, during yet another phone call with a Fedloan representative, she exclaimed in surprise, " You submitted this recertification and it went through months ago! '' I perked up. She was right. I had. So why do I have a delinquent account with an enormous payment owing??? She assured me that " the system '' would catch up, that I had done everything I needed to do, and that all would be well. Sure enough, the next morning I got an email saying that my IDR had been processed and my new monthly payment was {$140.00}. Great! Ok! Except the delinquency did n't drop off. It 's still there. It 's almost XX/XX/XXXX, so this has been going on for over 6 months, on a process that has to be completed annually. I have called 4 times in the past 3 weeks, because I 'm getting ominous calls and emails about how my account is overdue and delinquent. Each time I am assured that it 's " just going to take another week or so '' for " them '' to finish my review. No one will tell me who " them '' is, or why I needed a " review, '' nor will they let me speak to " them. '' They assure me that this wo n't impact my credit score or PSLF. They assure me that the overdue amount will drop off and my account will show a forbearance during the time the recertification was being processed. But I was n't in forbearance. I kept making monthly payments. So that 's 6 more months of payments that wo n't count toward PSLF. All because ... ..I actually have no idea. And yet here I sit with a giant delinquency on an account that I 'm current on and have been for over 6 years now. Getting harassing calls and emails. Back at zero on my PSLF payments. I 'm distraught. And no amount of time taken away from my job sitting on the phone, or writing emails, or faxing documents, seems to do any good.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation