Consumer complaint received 2017-09-02
Company: AES/PHEAA
State: CO
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 have had a terrible experience dealing with my loan servicer, Fedloan. I have been working diligently toward public service loan forgiveness and toward the necessary 120 payments. When I heard about all of the troubles other people have had with the servicer I decided to review my records to make sure they had been keeping an accurate tally of my qualifying payments for PSLF. I found that they had miscounted my payments and so in XXXX XXXX, I requested a detailed payment history from Fedloan so that I could compare records. I was told I would have the requested paperwork within 90 days. As of XXXX XXXX I still had not heard any follow-up from Fedloan and so I called again. The customer service representative I spoke with had no idea why I had not received the information I requested and offered no solution. I was only forwarded to a supervisor after requesting to speak with a supervisor. The supervisor then promised I would have my detailed payment history available within 5 days and magically I did receive the payment history within 5 days ( see attached fedloan letter ). 

I found that the error in counting payments was during my most recent employment certification between XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX. I counted a total of 16 payments and they only counted 15. I called Fedloan again and was informed that the reason for the discrepancy was that they had not counted the payment I made under IBR of {$1800.00} in XXXX XXXX XXXX see attached screenshot of payment history ). The reason for this is because I was put into loan forbearance while in the process of switching to REPAYE from IBR at that time. I also made a {$5.00} forbearance payment in XXXX XXXX which understandably was not counted as a qualifying payment. I considered it an error on the part of Fedloan that I was placed in forbearance early in XXXX XXXX and that the IBR payment of {$1800.00} on XXXX XXXX, XXXX should have counted as a qualifying payment toward PSLF. I was initially told by the customer service rep that Fedloan had not sent me a bill for the XXXX XXXX payment and that 's why it did n't count as a qualifying payment ( this is incorrect- see attached copy of an email from XXXX/XXXX/XXXX informing of a bill for my XXXX payment- the pdf of the bill is no longer available electronically on their website because they only keep the last 12 months of statements XXXX. In addition, I have automatic debit set up and informed the service rep that I should not have been debited if they did not send me a bill! She did not relent nor show any ability and/or interest in understanding my point of view so I again had to ask to speak to a supervisor since this rep had no interest and /or ability to actually solve my problem. The supervisor agreed to remove the " forbearance '' on the account for the month of XXXX XXXX and informed me that the XXXX XXXX payment will be processed as a qualifying payment. Unfortunately, she told me I will have to wait an additional 90 days for processing. If the processing actually does go through in 90 days, it will have taken 8 months, a total of about 8 phone calls, and about 5 hours of my time for Fedloan to correct their mistake! That is completely ludicrous. At this point I do not trust that I will actually receive any paperwork in 90 days because for the most part, they have not followed through with what I have been told over the phone. 

I find Fedloan 's customer service to be abhorrent. Each time I call, I get a different story from the person I speak with and the reps seem to have extremely limited knowledge of student loan processing. I have been given blatantly incorrect information from reps on multiple occasions. I also feel like most of the customer service reps are on the side of their employer and do not have the borrowers ' best interest in mind. For the most part, I have not had success in getting my questions answered by Fedloan customer service except for when speaking with supervisors.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief