Consumer complaint received 2017-10-17
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: MD
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:
I took out loans to cover my XXXX and XXXX XXXX education. After XXXX XXXX, I was hired by the Federal Government, consolidated my loans, applied for and was accepted into the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Plan ( PSLF ). My loans were transferred from XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX to XXXX XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ).  Before transfer, I was on a Pay-As-You-Earn plan, based on my salary. Payments were made monthly by auto-pay, without any problems. On XXXX XXXX, XXXX, the loans were officially transferred from XXXX to XXXX. From XXXX, XXXX, XXXX billed me XXXX dollars. I made several phone calls, send several emails, and involved the Department of Education to get them to correct my monthly bill so that I could pay them the money they should have been collecting. During at least one of my calls with XXXX, I was told that because I was paying the amount listed on my bill ( {$0.00} ), those months would count for PSLF. I believe they also told me I would not need to reimburse them for those back months once the amount was corrected, but I am less certain of that than I am of their statements on the non-payment months counting towards my PSLF total months employed. They claim their calls are recorded, so they should have records of this call. In XXXX, my bill showed my correct monthly payment. My hours of work trying to get them to accept that I did in fact owe money was finally successful. I assumed the ordeal of trying to get a loan holder to collect money in a sensical manner was finally over. 
Unfortunately, the next month, XXXX XXXX, my bill had the entire owed amount from XXXX. I was not notified of it until they informed me it would be sent to collections if unpaid. I immediately paid the bill, and the next morning, called XXXX. XXXX refused to take responsibility for the mistake, but did agree to put my loan into forebearance without interest penalty for the XXXX months that they claimed I owed, which I was informed would pull those months off, and then in XXXX I would resume payment as normal, without a change to my overall balance, or effect to PSLF ( IE, my balance would remain the same, it would be like they really had billed me {$0.00} for those months, which is exactly what they had done ). I once again, assumed that this matter was settled. 
Today, I received yet another call. XXXX informed me that I have 3 months to pay the full amount owed for XXXX, or I will not receive credit for the months, despite their former statements over the phone. I am absolutely sick of wasting time trying to pay my loan under the terms. They threatened to take me to collections over a change they unilaterally made. They keep changing how theyre administering the repayment of my loan. Is there anything that can be done to force them to maintain some consistency and fairness? 

Message CC : United States Consumer Finance Protection Bureau United States Department of Education Maryland Represenative XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation