Consumer complaint received 2024-07-08
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan — Can't temporarily delay making payments
Company: Maximus Federal Services, Inc. (GA)

Around XX/XX/XXXX, I submitted an in-school deferral request online to Aidvantage for a Direct Consolidation Loan of a Parent Plus loan taken out when my daughter did her XXXX degree ( graduated in XXXX ). She began her XXXX XXXX XXXX in XXXX of XXXX. This request was denied on XX/XX/XXXX ( XXXX ). 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I contacted Aidvantage to ask why the request was denied, and to request a deferral directly. I was told on the phone that I would need to submit another request online. That same day, I submitted another online in-school deferment request. This request was denied on XX/XX/XXXX ( XXXX ). I submitted another request around that day, and received another denial on XX/XX/XXXX ( XXXX ). 

I have attached the format of the in-school deferment request that I submitted ( XXXX  ) - this is just a template, and not filled out with my information. When I submitted the request, Section 4 - " Authorized Official 's Certification '' was empty, as it is the XXXX  school 's policy that the Registrar 's office no longer certifies enrollment, and that loan servicers should be able to pull that information from XXXX XXXX XXXX ( this was confirmed by a call to the XXXX school 's XXXX XXXX, and visible in the document XXXX XXXX The resulting denial form from XX/XX/XXXX states that there is " missing information that must be completed by an authorized school official ''. As previously stated, XXXX does not allow school officials to certify school enrollment. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I called Aidvantage again, and explained to them that studentaid.gov and XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX both confirmed that the student was enrolled half-time in a qualifying master 's program, and that they needed to check National Student Clearinghouse themselves in order to confirm the enrollment. I was placed on hold for several minutes while someone checked that a Direct Consolidation Loan of a Parent Plus loan was in fact eligible for in-school deferment, and the woman confirmed that it was. She then stated that they would open up an inquiry on their end to check XXXX XXXX XXXX to confirm enrollment. I asked how I would be notified of a resolution, and she said I would receive an email. 

It is now XX/XX/XXXX, and I have not received any email or communication from Aidvantage of the deferment, and I have not received any acknowledgement of the inquiry that was supposedly filed on XX/XX/XXXX. Since all the other inquiries took a max of 5 days to be resolved, I suspect that nothing was filed on their end to check enrollment. 

Since XXXX, when my daughter became enrolled in grad school, I have made 2 months of payments totaling {$940.00} that I should not have had to make if they had properly processed the in-school deferment requests correctly. The next payment is due on XX/XX/XXXX, and I have to continue making payments until the deferment is processed or else they'll ruin my credit score. It seems they are purposefully not processing my deferment, purposefully making it difficult for me and generally being unhelpful so that I have to continue making payments.