Consumer complaint received 2016-12-01
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Can't repay my loan — Can't decrease my monthly payments
Company: AES/PHEAA (DC)

This complaint is against FedLoan servicing. I am in the process of switching from the XXXX program to the REPAYE program and as part of that I was temporarily put in forbearance for the month of XXXX this month. I received no confirmation that the forbearance was processed but I logged into my account at the beginning of this month to check on it and it showed that a minimum forbearance payment of {$5.00} was scheduled to be debited this month. I received a notification today that my application to change my loan repayment plan was denied because the forbearance payment did not process. I found out today that forbearance payments do not autodebit and I was expected to make a manual payment. I never received a notification of an upcoming payment due, a past due notice or anything of the sort between the time of my application submission and XXXX when I received a notice of past due interest payments, which is what prompted me to look again today. 
I spoke with XXXX ( unknown last name - probably does n't have XXXX but he does have an employee number : XXXX ) who refused to give me any information regarding his supervisor. I immediately told him to suspend my debits for this month and to reapply forbearance. I asked him how long it would take for me to hear about the reapplication for forbearance and he replied XXXX4 weeks. This means my account must now become delinquent this month and the brought current after the forbearance goes into effect as payments are due the XXXX of the month. I fear will have an impact on my credit score going forward. In addition, I now have 3 months of interest instead of XXXX which will capitalize upon the finalization of the payment restructuring. 

My complaint is that the process of working with Fedloan is unnecessarily onerous and confusing, so that they set up the process to make it very easy to make a mistake which results in more debt on the consumer. It is clearly in their interest for me to be in forbearance for 3 months rather than XXXX as it makes me beholden to their bottom line for longer and now with more interest for the greedy bastards to capitalize into my principal. They are an engine of financial slavery of sorts as with a servicer like this, it is very difficult to maintain a structured plan to actually rid myself of the albatross around my neck that is my student debt. 
I should have received clear instructions regarding the requirement for a manual repayment. This XXXX referred to specific fine print in the terms and conditions stating the forbearance payments must be made manually, which I have not confirmed yet but will, which is fine, however I deal with the website interface when working with my account, not the terms and conditions, which very clearly showed my forbearance payment was scheduled for autodebit or at least it very much appeared it would be. 
I should have received some notification that my request forbearance was applied. I had to log in myself to find this out. I do n't understand how this is acceptable practice. 

I also unfortunately have very little faith that this complaint will bring anything to bear as they are a behemoth entity and I am but XXXX person - which is evidences by the fact that when I asked for an apology for the deliberately opaque process, XXXX was silent - literally said nothing. He then clammed up further and would only answer very direct questions, which is the kind of callous service I have come to expect from Fedloan.