Consumer complaint received 2018-03-28
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Don't agree with the fees charged
Company: AES/PHEAA (WV)

I had my TEACH Grants converted into loans for submitting my annual form " sort of '' late ( XX/XX/XXXX ). I say sort of late because it was due in XX/XX/XXXX or XX/XX/XXXX each year, but I always ( every year that I completed it " on time '' ) got a notice that I had to resubmit the form after the end of the school year ( sometime after XX/XX/XXXX 1 ). So, the first 2 years I submitted my form on time, only to get a notice that I needed to redo it after the end of the school year. I called the second year to ask about the due date ( XX/XX/XXXX to verify that I taught for the whole year???? ), and the person I talked to could not explain that the date was due to my graduation date of XX/XX/XXXX ( I figured that out later ). So, the third year I just thought I would wait until the end of the school year to do it the first time ( instead of duplicating my efforts to round up the signatures twice a year instead of once ). I got a couple of notices that the form was going to be late, so I finally went ahead and submitted it. Well, by then it was a few days later than the final date, so my grants got converted into loans along with $ XXXX dollars in accrued interest. I called to ask about it and was told that, " yes, we have your form, but it was 3 days late ... sorry, we can not convert them back into grants. '' Keep in mind I have completed all of the other requirements for my TEACH grants to be forgiven, but I filed a form late ( that I was going to have to file again later anyway because the school year wasn't over yet and I couldn't get an explanation of why it was due in XX/XX/XXXX from XXXX ), causing the grants to turn into loans. I thought " how stupid of me, surely no one else has done this ''. Then, today I was reading a story about the thousands of other people that were ripped off in exactly the same ( or a very similar ) way. So, I now tell as many of my students that will listen to " avoid student loans if at all possible, and read every bit of fine print on grants and scholarships ''. The TEACH grants were part of the reason I became a teacher ( because I could get it partially paid for ). Now, I wish I had never done it ( at least the TEACH grants ). I could see something like a small " late fee '' of some sort, but I ended up with what amounted to a {$2500.00} - {$2600.00} " fine '' ( at 6.8 % interest ) for not filing a form " on time '' only to be told that I would have to file it again anyway! 

I was also told by customer support at FEDLoanServicing to just " apply for the teacher loan forgiveness program after my 5th year teaching '', which I did ( and will try again ), but my application was declined because I have some older loans ( before the Fall XX/XX/XXXX cutoff, or whatever the arbitrary date is ). So, I'm also being punished financially for becoming a teacher after I had another career ( so, I'm older and went back to school to become a teacher, so now I can't get loan forgiveness for my loans that I specifically took out to be a teacher ). I file a separate complaint on that later. 

NOTE : This is a copy of what I submitted as the complaint to the U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid Complaint Portal.