Consumer complaint received 2024-10-05
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: Nelnet, Inc. (IN)

My standard payment to Nelnet per month is {$100.00}. I have been consistently paying well above this amount each month in a effort to minimize the interest I am paying and to pay my loan off early.

Complain # 1. It has been impossible to track my payments clearly because Nelnet does not provide an opening and closing balance on their statements and I only started keeping my statements in XXXX after they lost XXXX of my payments. Also, when I log into Nelnet, there are no statements only a list of payments showing what was applied to interest and what was applied to principal.

Complaint # 2 It has seemed to me for some time that my balance was coming down much more slowly than I would have expected. Once I started keeping my monthly statements ( yes, I should have done so previously and stupidly trusted Nelnet, everything worked fine until Nelnet moved to a different website about a year ago and then things got weird ). Since I started really paying attention and keeping my statements from XXXX this year onwards, the balances just don't see to match what I have paid. You will see this on the attached files. 

Complaint # XXXX. In XXXX I paid {$450.00} via check as I usually make my payments. Then I started getting emails saying my payment was late, never mind that I have been consistently paying well above the minimum balance so should have been running months ahead. I then made a payment of {$200.00} on line which was the amount Nelnet was claiming was owing- this is XXXX months of the regular monthly payment amount not one which is strange in itself. I then emailed Nelnet to see what had happened to my {$450.00} payment because it was debited from my bank account but not showing in Nelnet. I received no reply. I then called Nelnet and the woman I spoke to, XXXX, said I had to email or write via snail mail as she couldn't help me. She could see the {$200.00} payment but not the {$450.00}. Oddly, my XXXX statement from Nelnet showed the {$450.00} payment but not the {$200.00}. So I wrote via snail mail and received no response until some time after the fact I received a phone call from a woman who I did not get the name of. By this time the {$200.00} and the {$450.00} were both showing on line in Nelnet, however the {$200.00} has not shown up on any of the printed statements I have received. So I still can not really see that both have been applied. This brings me to : Complaint # XXXX Interest. While I had the no name Nelnet woman on the phone I asked her why my interest was all over the place XXXX month $ {$9.00} and the next month {$53.00} for example yet my overall balance was, or should have been, coming down. She said it depended on how they applied my payments since I was paying more than the minimum and Nelnet would apply the payment to the loan with the highest interest. I said but surely the monthly amount owing would go across each loan and she said " not necessarily '' and as a result I could have a loan that was not paid for several months and as a result accrued a lot of interest. This strikes me as usurious. I have attached my last four statements so you can see what I mean along with screen shots from Nelnet 's website which does not really help me keep track of my balance but does show the interest paid.

Complaint # 5 The balances from one statement to another don't make sense. For example, the current balance showing on the XX/XX/XXXX statement was {$3700.00}, and the amount currently owing was {$0.00}. The XX/XX/XXXX current balance was {$3700.00} and that statement showed that I paid {$500.00} ( true, I did ), the regular monthly payment amount was {$100.00}, the amount already paid for the month was - {$68.00} and the current amount due was {$32.00}. How does this work? What I would like is clear statements of everything I have paid since XX/XX/year> showing opening and closing balances and amounts paid. Then I can check this against my bank statements of payments made and make sure everything matches. You will see that between my XXXX and XXXX statements there is a drop in balance that is more than I paid that month, I am sure it was an attempt to correct something but who knows. Nelnet is totally opaque.

Complaint # 6. The missing {$450.00} payment I that cleared my bank account back in XXXX was only applied to my account in XXXX, I do not for one moment believe interest was managed correctly. I would like my interest in general to be recalculated as it should have been with my student loans being paid each month, not money withheld to one loan completely for no good reason.

At this point, I believe I have probably more than paid my actual loan balances in full including interest but I can not actually determine that because I don't have real statements with opening and closing balances. I am beyond frustrated with Nelnet 's complete lack of response and lack of clarity. Hoping you can help me get to the bottom of this. In the meantime I will continue making payments even though I believe at this point Nelnet owes me. I have attached screenshots of Nelnet 's website, my statements for XXXX through XXXX, and the letter I sent to Nelnet in XXXX. Many thanks for your help.