Consumer complaint received 2024-05-21
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Don't agree with the fees charged
Company: MOHELA (NY)

Hello, I am on an IDR plan ( PAYE ) to repay my federal consolidated student loans through Mohela. When loan payments resumed in XX/XX/XXXX, my monthly loan payment was {$380.00}. 

In late XXXX, I started receiving multiple correspondence from Mohela indicating that I should recertify my income and family size to avoid missing my recertification deadline of XX/XX/XXXX. I recertified my income with Mohela on XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, I received correspondence from Mohela that my new monthly loan payment would be {$1100.00} as a result of the recertification! This new payment would be due XX/XX/XXXX. I began anxiously planning how I could change my life in order to accommodate this payment. 

Within days of my recertification, the Biden administration announced that the deadline to recertify income and family size for IDR plans would be extended until XX/XX/XXXX, and therefore the earliest anyone would have to recertify to meet the deadline would be XX/XX/XXXX. The announcement acknowledged that if you already recertified, and your payment went up, it would be reverted to its previous monthly amount ( ie. {$380.00} for me ), until the new recertification deadline. ( See : https : //studentaid.gov/announcements-events/idr-recertification-extended ). 

I became aware of this announcement midXXXX, and first called Mohela XX/XX/XXXX ( XXXX ). The agent confirmed that, due to the announcement, the new payment of {$1100.00} would *not* go into effect in XX/XX/XXXX. Instead, I should expect to continue {$380.00} monthly payments until at least XX/XX/XXXX, as noted on studentaid.gov. The agent confirmed that she put in a request to have my monthly payment lowered back to {$380.00} per month. She said the turn-around would be 5-7 business days. Then, I should get a letter posted to my account with the updated monthly payment. If this were true, this should have occurred well before my XX/XX/XXXX loan payment due date. 

I called Mohela again XXXX because the payment amount still was not updated. It showed I would owe {$1100.00} on XX/XX/XXXX. I called Mohela and was on hold for XXXX hour and 46 minutes before I had to give up. I was unable to speak with an agent that day. They had a recording that best times to call, for lower call volumes, were Thursday and Friday mornings. 

I called Mohela again on Thursday morning, XXXX. The first agent I spoke with told me that they saw documentation from XX/XX/XXXX regarding a request to return my monthly payment to the prior amount. However, they told me, the request did not go through. The agent said, maybe they missed a step?. They transferred me to another agent. The second agent I spoke to agreed that my monthly payment should be returned to the prior amount of {$380.00}, in accordance with the Biden administration announcement. She said that she would request, again, to have my payment correctly lowered. However, it will take some time to go through. She was not able to give any time estimate. She did advise me that I would need to make my monthly Mohela payment on time ( ie. the EXACT amount listed on the account, whether or not its correct ), in order to ( a ) prevent my account from going into forbearance and ( b ) prevent my monthly payment from not being counted towards PSLF. She said that if I ended up overpaying, I could call Mohela to request a refund later. She stated that there was no designated form, or other information regarding the refund process. She said I should simply call. 

This request did not go through in time, so I paid Mohela {$1100.00} on XX/XX/XXXX. This was an overpayment by {$710.00}. 

I called Mohela again on Thursday morning XX/XX/XXXX to check the status. The agent acknowledged that my monthly payment should be {$380.00}. They were " unable '' to provide the status of my prior request to lower my payment, so they said they would put in *another* request to lower it back to the correct amount. This time, they said it could take up to 60 business days. In the meantime, they confirmed I would have to continue submitting monthly payments in the exact amount listed on the account to prevent forbearance or disqualification of my payments for PSLF. 

I called Mohela again on Thursday morning XX/XX/XXXX to check the status of my request, since it seemed that all prior requests had failed. This time, the agent confirmed that my request was in process to have the monthly payment lowered from {$1100.00} to {$380.00}. They also confirmed that it can take 60 business days from the date of request. If this time frame is correct, that means my payments might not be lowered to the correct amount until approximately XX/XX/XXXX! Then, the kicker. This agent informed me that I cant apply for a refund of overpayments later on, if my account was not put into forbearance at the time. This made no sense to me, since the prior agent I spoke to clearly stated that I would be reimbursed in the future for any overpayment related to this premature recertification. Also, if my account is put into forbearance, it would disqualify any payments made during that time from PSLF. I declined forbearance for this reason. The agent said there was nothing they could do. 

I paid Mohela {$1100.00} again on XX/XX/XXXX. This was another overpayment by {$710.00}, for a running overpayment total of {$1400.00}. Mohela currently has my account listed as owing {$1100.00} again on XX/XX/XXXX. Please help. I should not have to pay a higher amount due to Mohela not following the new guidelines to delay income and family size recertification. It is unfair for me to be punished for trying to do the right thing when I recertified prematurely, as instructed by Mohela. 

As you can see, I have called Mohela numerous times, but they have not been able to offer acceptable solutions, especially when my future hangs in the balance. They seem happy for me to continue making large overpayments, and they do not seem to care that their purported turn-around time of XXXX business days is a major financial hardship for me. I am not even sure whether they will fix the problem in that time frame since they have been incredibly unreliable. And, perhaps most frighteningly, they have now indicated that they would not refund me in the future for overpaying, as they had previously stated they would. I dont know what to do. This is not a financially sustainable situation for me. Please help me get my monthly payments correctly lowered. Please help me get reimbursements for my overpayments. Thank you. I really appreciate your help.