Consumer complaint received 2023-07-21
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Problem with customer service
Company: AES/PHEAA (PA)

I have chosen Problem with Customer Service, however every single category of problem is involved in this. 

I am writing to report American Education Services ( AES ) for purposefully withholding information. Specifically they never made IDR available to me in XXXX when I exited college and had trouble repaying my loans. IDR was not discussed only standard and extended. Because I thought those were my only options and I could not afford the standard payment, I chose extended which then locked me out of the PSLF I would now rightly be on track to qualify for under all criteria but loan repayment plan. They offer me options now that are of extreme detriment to me and would basically amount to me having given them money for 12 years to no purpose and have told me the 8 years of PSLF eligible payments would not count. 

Additionally, at the time of taking the loans they service I was told it was government money because I did not have a cosigner with good enough credit or income to secure private loans. They have now begun calling them " commercially held '' which is absolutely not what was told to me prior to signing the original promissory. 

Further, AES has taken XXXX proactive steps to tell me about alternate loan options, like consolidation, etc. That would be beneficial to me as a consumer. They claim " oh we have information on our website '' but the only emails that are sent are the billing emails which drop you on a login page and then redirect you to the payment page bypassing all information. I also pointed out to them the absurdity of this ... what is the poinXXXX in having talked to a professional about it if they were just going to say " well you have to research it yourself ''. 

They have also denied multiple requests over 12 years for amortization sheets saying that they " can't do it because the number of days in a billing period fluctuates ''. I have called XXXX on this to them because it's extremely basic math involving multiplication and addition ; in other words, they can do it, they purposefully choose not to so as to obscure the ridiculous nature of their daily compounding of interest. 

They have also all but admitted to two short periods of theft or misallocation of payment funds. I made payments during a period of educational deferment ( 2 2-month periods in XXXX ). I was unaware I was in deferment during these periods, yet they took the paymenr money and charged me interest on subsidized loans. I did not know this happened until they basically drew my attention to it in an email last Friday, XX/XX/XXXX. The theft occurred in XXXX and they never notified me of it, nor credited me and didn't even purposefully draw my attention to it. They made me aware of it only accidentally. 

I have tried working with them but after ripping apart their last email last Friday XX/XX/XXXX in a point by point counter email, they have now decided to completely ignore me for the last 7 days. 

I have informed them over and over again that I am angry and that not assisting me will have repercussions. I have taken the first steps today to report them to the DoEd OIG and now you. 

I am very angry about this whole thing and they are being unhelpful and now just straight up are ignoring me hoping I will just go away. 

I have informed them that I will no longer pay my loans and they have threatened me with collections and told me that they will be calling me, emailing me, etc. To notify me of missing payments. In other words, they fully acknowledge the validity of persistent multi-vector communication on important matters... but only when they are the ones who benefit from it ; not when it is the borrower who stands to benefit.