Consumer complaint received 2024-09-20
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: MOHELA (RI)

Back in XXXX of XXXX, I decided to lower my monthly student loan payments by applying for the SAVE Plan. Multiple entities recommended I do so, including the Department of Education, MOHELA, other student loan holders, etc. In order to qualify for the SAVE plan, I made long-term financial decisions that affected not just me, but my entire household, based on information I had received from MOHELA and others. I consolidated my loans and my husband and I filed our taxes separately instead of jointly. 

In XXXX of XXXX, I was informed that my loans had been consolidated and I had been placed on a Standard Repayment Plan rather than the Income Based One I had been one. This was expected, because according to MOHELA and the Department of Education consolidation always results in being placed on a Standard Plan. I believed, again, based on the information I had received, that my SAVE application would be processed soon enough, and I would be back on an Income Based Plan, able to make qualifying payments towards PSLF. After all, I had applied for consolidation and the SAVE Plan using the same application. 

XXXX turned into XXXX, and the status of my SAVE Plan application remained " pending, '' despite the fact that my application for consolidation had already been processed ( again, I had applied for both at the same time ). In the meantime, MOHELA sent out letters to multiple loan-holders, including me, saying that our payments were now {$0.00} a month, as well as letters with my new payment plan which included a much higher monthly payment. When I called the customer service line to get more information, I was told the {$0.00} monthly payment letter was a mistake, and was reminded that it can take up to 90 business days for my SAVE Plan application to be processed. Never mind that my consolidation, for which I applied using the same application, had already gone through. She had no information about why that would have happened. Evidently MOHELA was busy sitting around not processing the rest of my application. She then placed me on a 90 day forbearance, along with the accruing interest that entailed. 

XXXX arrived, along with the impending end of my forbearance. By now, part of SAVE had been overturned, and I was anxious for my application to be processed since things seemed very uncertain. I called again, and this time spoke to an incredibly condescending customer service person. I was again informed I needed to wait 90 business days. He claimed to be unable to do anything, such as give me more information, including why my consolidation had been approved and my Save Plan application hadn't, or simply process my application then, or transfer me to anyone who could. He did offer to help me submit another SAVE application, which would reset the clock to another 90 days. 

Shortly after that, the SAVE Plan was overturned by court order entirely. I am now stuck on the Standard Repayment Plan, and therefore unable to make any payments towards PSLF. MOHELA has frozen applications for any Income Based Plans, so I can not get onto a PSLF qualifying plan. My payments have shot up from about {$57.00} a month to {$300.00} a month. Since my SAVE Plan application was never processed, I have no idea if I qualify for the automatic forbearance, but I doubt it. I can not help but think MOHELA deliberately slow walked my SAVE Plan application so that they could stick me with a three digit monthly payment. 

This is insane. I made long-term decisions affecting not just me, but my husband, in order to take the steps I was told to take by institutions I am supposed to be able to trust. I didn't do this on a whim ; I agonized over whether to apply for the SAVE Plan, and it blew up in my face. I was the object of " call deflection '' by their ( and I use the term loosely ) customer service reps. They XXXX XXXX XXXX informing me that I only owe {$0.00} a month, and refused to take any accountability for it. I simply can not afford the payments I now owe them.