Consumer complaint received 2023-10-31
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan — Problem with your payment plan
Company: Nelnet, Inc. (NY)

My servicer is Nelnet. I applied for SAVE through Studentaid.gov on XX/XX/XXXX and gave the DOE permission to access my IRS info. According to Studentaid.gov, Nelnet processed the application on XXXX and would be sending me my new bill/documents within a few weeks. I never received any SAVE correspondence from Nelnet. On XX/XX/XXXX I was emailed a bill for the regular non-SAVE IBR amount. I called Nelnet customer service on XX/XX/XXXX ; I was on hold for an hour and disconnected, called back and was on hold for another 1.5 hours before speaking with someone. I was told that my application was missing financials ( not true ). This person did some digging and learned that " the system '' changed some of my " no '' answers to " yes, '' thereby making my application incomplete. I was then placed on hold another 15-20 minutes and told that my application is now complete and Nelnet will be processing it over the next week or so. When I still hadn't received any correspondence, I called Nelnet on XXXX. This time I was in the queue for three hours. The customer service representative said that they needed more time. I expressed concern about my bill being due on XX/XX/XXXX, since it's unaffordable to me. I asked about a forbearance but was dissuaded because the representative said that if I requested a forbearance it would count against my overall allowed forbearances. He recommended that I simply refrain from making payments and take advantage of the DOE 's 12 month " on ramping '' program. This is confusing to me, because I thought that when I applied for SAVE my loans would be placed into a forbearance while the application processed. Looking online it seems that people who are placed on forbearance will still have those months counted towards forgiveness, but it's hard to know what's true. To this day I still have yet to receive any SAVE correspondence from Nelnet. However, last week I logged on and saw a " pop up '' saying that my SAVE application was no longer being processed because I failed to make the " payment '' that Nelnet described in its email and letter to me. I NEVER received any SAVE correspondence from Nelnet, so I called on XX/XX/XXXX. I believe I was on hold for two hours before speaking with a customer service representative who was initially confused ( referencing correspondence that predates my SAVE application ), but did some digging and realized that I needed to make a {$5.00} exit payment for Nelnet to process the application. I made the payment online, but with her on the phone. However, when I asked for next steps after the payment I was disconnected and never received a callback. It took a couple of days for my payment to process, but it seems that it went to interest and has not satisfied the SAVE requirement -- I'm still receiving the pop up whenever I log on and I still have zero SAVE correspondence from Nelnet. I decided to file this complaint after doing research online and seeing that people are being told that the {$5.00} payment can only be made through a special link or a phone. I need clear answers. A second loan payment will be due in two weeks and I've already accrued XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX  in interest since XXXX ( due to shady practices from my prior servicer, Navient, the approximately XXXX in student loans that I took out has doubled and is now over XXXX ). The SAVE plan will halve my current IDR payment and make payments affordable for me. Even if Nelnet 's processing times are excessive due to the volume of SAVE applications, there is no excuse for the misrepresentations and poor communication.