Consumer complaint received 2020-04-10
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: Nelnet, Inc. (TX)

I have two loans with XXXX that are serviced by Firstmark Services. The two payments are drafted from two different checking accounts on different dates. 

In XXXX, 2019 I opened a new checking account and switched my banking. I updated the auto debit details for one of these loans on the Firstmark website.

When I did this Firstmark automatically cancelled the auto debit that was set up on the other loan. At no point did they advise me that one of the auto debits had been cancelled while only one had been modified. They sent me a confirmation email confirming the new auto debit but said nothing of the existing auto debit set up for the other loan. 

The only correspondence I received from Firstmark were nondescript emails saying I had new messages on XXXX. Nothing was displayed regarding late payments. The only thing the website showed were the details of my last payment and saying I had a payment due. It said nothing about a late payment. 

I tried logging in using my other Firstmark username and it showed a zero balance.

At no point did Firstmark tell me a payment had been missed or that I was behind on payments. They did not tell me that my auto debit had been cancelled by their systems. They did not advise me by email, writing, or by phone. I have zero records of them reaching out to me saying I missed a payment. 

I received another email late XXXX saying I had a new message on the website. I logged in again and this time it displayed a late payment. Yet when I went to the payment history page it showed my auto debits proceeding as usual, but for just one account. It does not show any payment history for the other account. 

I was very confused as to what the situation was so I called Firstmark. It took one hour on the phone for them to even figure out what was going on. Firstmark could not even get my account numbers correct.

The first two agents I spoke to confirmed that when you update the auto debit details for one account it cancels any other auto debits automatically and it does not warn you. The last agent I spoke to denied this and accused me of cancelling the auto debits. I would not have done this. 

It was still unclear how much was due and on what loans. It took more time on hold for them to sort through the loans and figure out what had happened and what needed to be paid to stay current. 

They advised me that it had already been reported negatively to the credit bureaus despite them not reaching out to me. They did not call, email, or send mail saying anything was past due. The only place this information was displayed was in an obscure inbox on their website that is cumbersome to navigate to. 

I told them to set up the auto debits again. The person I spoke to said after this payment to bring everything current was made that he'd set up the auto debits again. I also requested that they removed the negative information from my credit report. He said that's not possible. 

I called again to confirm the payment was made and the account was current. The agent I spoke to this time confirmed that if I was in school ( which I am ) that the negative information could be removed from my credit report. I needed to fill out a form confirming my enrollment, which I did. 

Fast forward to the next payment date of XX/XX/XXXX, and the payment was missed AGAIN. I called Firstmark again and they confirmed there was no auto debit and that the payment wasn't made. I asked them how this was possible. The phone rep accused me of not setting up the auto debit and I assured her we did. I asked her to dig through the records of our calls.

After 20 minutes on hold she confirms that the last agent said he'd set up auto debit, *but he failed to do so*. It was so infuriating to have them blame me again for failures on their end. I set up a manual payment, and the lady assured me auto debit would be set up this time. 

I asked her about the handling of my paperwork confirming that I am enrolled in school. She again didn't know what I was talking about. After even more time on hold she came back and told me the last agent failed to submit the request! 

I was absolutely flabbergasted. No one at this company is doing their job or doing what they say they will. 

At this point I've lost my .25 % interest rate deduction, I've paid late fees, and I have the account negatively reported to the credit agencies because of Firstmark 's flawed systems and inept agents. 

I asked her to submit a request asking the negative information be removed from my credit report. She said that's a manual review process and she'd submit the paperwork when I hung up the phone. I urged her to make a strong case. 

I called back a week or so later to follow up on this. They told me the request had be denied. I asked them why the in school deferral wouldn't help, and she said the date was applied incorrectly. She told me it would be a few days for that to be fixed but that the negative reporting should happen. 

A few days later I logged onto Firstmark and saw that both auto debits had been cancelled yet again! I did not request for the auto debits to be cancelled! This is my fifth call to Firstmark in the month of XXXX. 

She told me that the agent who processed the forms confirming I am enrolled in school put my loans into a deferred status. I told her I did NOT want to do this! The entire time I've made it abundantly clear that I want to pay these loans as prescribed on their 7 year time schedule so this is done with and paid for. Now I am off my payment plan, again, and I've lost the .25 % interest rate deductions. 

I am still waiting for call backs from Firstmark to get this resolved and get me on auto debit again. No one has reached out to me and my loans remain in a deferred status against my wishes. They've told me I can manually make payments whenever I want to, but I want auto debit set up and the .25 % interest rate reduction!

Firstmark is inept at handling auto debit and loans, keeping records, or processing payments accordingly. They did not tell me they turned off my auto debit and that I was missing payments, they penalized me with late fees and negative reporting to the credit bureaus, and cancelled my auto debits again thus raising my interest rates. 

Getting anyone reasonable to help with or take accountability for their own shortcomings is impossible. Perhaps the most frustrating thing in all of this is that they've continued to blame me for these things despite them needing 30+ minutes every phone call to even get a grasp for what is happening with my accounts. 

Firstmark Services are crooks, and XXXX is complicit in using them and not responding to customer service requests. Firstmark says they are bound by what XXXX tells them to do, and XXXX says they can not do anything as Firstmark handles the loan. They're both shady and fraudulent in their practices.