Consumer complaint received 2018-08-03
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: DISCOVER BANK (PA)

For the past 18 months, Discover Student Loans has been improperly charging me a late fee on my student loan account due to what the company admitted is a glitch in their system. After numerous attempts at a resolution, the fee continues to be assessed to my account. 

Starting in early XX/XX/XXXX, I noticed after paying my loans for the month there would be a charge of approximately {$2.00} remaining on my account even after paying in full. Further, paying this stated amount would would not reduce the balance as if it was stuck in my account. In XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX I contacted Discover Student Loans via their secure message functionality to get an answer about the issue. I do not recall the resolution of the XX/XX/XXXX conversation ( conveniently, any conversations from secure messages seemed to disappear from my inbox in my Discover account, though I still have the emails from Discover saying that there are responses to the secured messages I sent ), but in XX/XX/XXXX I was issued a {$2.00} refund for the overpayment though it never corrected the underlying issue. 

Again on XX/XX/XXXX I sent another secure message related to the issue. It was marked as solved in the system but no resolution, explanation, or otherwise was given to me. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I called and spoke to a representative. I was told that the company was aware of the issue and that it affected a very small number of accounts. I was told the issue existed since XX/XX/XXXX and was due to the way that they switched how they charged late fees. I was assured that the issue would be corrected, and to just ignore anything about the account status as showing late in their system. To this day, the issue remains unresolved. I was also assured that the problem would not affect my credit score, but I was able to observe a corresponding balance increase on my credit report from the late fee being assessed after making a payment. 

I am extremely disappointed in Discovers inability to resolve the issue. As someone who is working very hard to repay my debts and improve my credit score, I do not find it acceptable that the issue is still outstanding and I am still being charged an additional amount every month improperly. I am disappointed that I am paying extra every month instead of using that money to pay of my higher-interest debt faster. 

My issues with Discover Student Loans customer service extends even further in the past. In late XX/XX/XXXX I had just graduated college ( note that this loan is from a previous attempt to obtain a degree at a different school ) and was experiencing a financial hardship as I was still trying to gain employment in my field. Numerous calls were made to the customer service line to try to avoid being late on payments, but I was told there were absolutely no alternative repayment options available and the only solution was to pay in full. In retrospect I believe - at the very least - I should have been given the option to pay at least for one of my two loans serviced to avoid being hit with two separate late payments on my credit report for every month I was behind. I understand that I had financial obligations to fulfill that I wasnt able to in the past, but I feel Discover also has the obligation to fulfill their duty to fairly and accurately service my loans, and they continue to not do so by not resolving this issue.