Consumer complaint received 2017-04-04
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: HI
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with my lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Received bad information about my loan

Complaint:
I am registered with the PSLF program for a portion of my loans. In XX/XX/XXXX, I requested with Fedloan that my repayment plan be changed from IBR to REPAYE for the loans that qualified for the latter plan ( the same loans, incidentally, that qualify for PSLF ). The request was made by phone ; I was told I would need to make a {$5.00} forbearance payment. Shortly thereafter, I received a bill for {$4.00} and instructions that this was my required " forbearance payment '' and I needed to make my payment between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, which I did. Instead of getting a bill for a reduced payment in XX/XX/XXXX, I received a bill for {$2000.00}. When I called, I was told that I was {$0.00} short on the forbearance payment. I was instructed to make a payment of at least {$0.00} and all would be well. I immediately made a payment of {$1.00} and, at the suggestion of the representative, de-authorized direct debit for XX/XX/XXXX. A week later, I was again told all was well, and my repayment plan transfer was being processed. XX/XX/XXXX approaced ; I call again. Come to find that, in fact, my request is not being processed, and I need to do the whole repayment plan request all over again and put my account into forbearance in order to " XXXX-out '' the " missed '' {$2000.00} payment which remained on my balance from XX/XX/XXXX. I did the forbearance, being presented with no other option. I call again in XX/XX/XXXX. Come to find that my second repayment plan transfer request can not be processed because the account is in forbearance. I ask for a supervisor, who acknowledges that big mistakes have been made with my account, and my account is placed into an elevated review and into another forbearance. Around XX/XX/XXXX I call again to follow up on the review. I am informed as follows : whoever calculated my repayment amount did so incorrectly. The supervisor recalculated it and gave me my total repayment amount and finally finished transferring the loans that qualified for REPAYE into that plan. I requested an override so that I could make qualifying payment for XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, and XX/XX/XXXX for the PSLF. The supervisor informs me that she has put in that request. I call yet again to follow up on the override request. I inform that supervisor that I was able to make a PSLF qualifying payment for the month of XX/XX/XXXX and was no longer seeking an override for that month. I make repeated follow-up calls. On XX/XX/XXXX, a supervisor informed me that corrections needed to be made to my request because the initial override request included an incorrect date of " XX/XX/XXXX. '' This supervisor also told me, that " FedLoan Financial Department '' was responsible for reviewing overrides and not an outside agency. I was assured that corrections were made. Last week on XXXX, I call again. I am told that there is nothing Fedloan can do about the review taking over 60 days because these requests are review by the DOE not the aforementioned " Financial Department. '' I ask if I can see what the override request says since there have been so many instances of misinformation and I want to know what exactly has been sent to the DOE. I am told that is not possible and I just have to trust FedLoan. I ask said supervisor to tell me, verbally, what exactly has been sent to the DOE. I find that the corrections regarding the typo on the XX/XX/XXXX payment request has not been sent to the DOE. I was promised an email confirmation of the contents of the XX/XX/XXXX conversation, which was never sent to me. During the many calls to Fedloan, I was repeatedly lied to and misled. I was also informed by several different employees that the {$4.00} " glitch '' was a known, recurring glitch, and that the DOE, although aware of this glitch had not accepted good faith payments. I was also told that I can not contact the responsible DOE dept. directly and if FedLoan provides misinformation to them regarding my request, there 's nothing that I can do.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief