Consumer complaint received 2024-06-27
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Don't agree with the fees charged
Company: MOHELA (CT)

I am submitting this complaint due to the gross mismanagement of my student loans by MOHELA, which has severely disrupted my financial strategy and imposed undue stress and burden. 

I have been dealing with significant issues with MOHELA 's handling of my student loans. Initially, I was on a standard 10-year repayment plan, paying {$1300.00} monthly up until the Covid forbearance period. Given the economic pressures of rising living costs and housing prices, I applied for the SAVE and PSLF programs in XX/XX/year>. Despite following MOHELA 's guidance and spending considerable time on this, they erroneously placed me on a 30-year repayment plan without my consent. This plan did not include the promised benefits of the SAVE and PSLF programs and threatened to triple or quadruple the interest over the life of the loan, which severely undermined my financial strategy. 

Recently, MOHELA managed to revert my plan to the SAVE program. However, there are still significant issues with their calculations. Despite filing my taxes as XXXX XXXX XXXX and my wife having {$44000.00} in student debt, her debt is not being factored into the calculations used to determine our monthly payment. According to the StudentAid.gov calculator, my monthly payment should be approximately {$300.00} based on our financial data. However, MOHELA is charging me {$700.00} a month and has failed to provide a clear explanation for this discrepancy. 

MOHELA 's representatives display a disturbing lack of understanding of their own systems and have been unable to provide clear guidance or correct errors. Their customer service is inefficient, involving extensive wait times and cumbersome touch-tone navigation systems, and my recent interaction ended with a representative hanging up on me because they could not answer basic inquiries. The refusal to adjust my payments to reflect my income and tax filing status, and retroactively adjust my payments to reflect the original application for the SAVE and PSLF programs is unacceptable. These bills were posted and accumulate interest every day, despite the extreme barriers posted by MOHELA just to get in contact with them. I have spoken to multiple supervisors and dozens of agents, often waiting on hold for 1-2 hours, only to receive no insight or solutions. 

The incompetence demonstrated by MOHELA is astonishing and places an unfair burden on borrowers. This mismanagement has disrupted my financial planning, imposed severe stress, and hindered my ability to make critical financial decisions. The lack of transparency and accountability is unacceptable. 


I urge the CFPB to investigate MOHELA 's practices, hold them accountable for these systemic issues, and ensure that my payments are retroactively adjusted to reflect the original application for the PSLF and SAVE programs. Furthermore, MOHELA needs to accurately calculate my payments considering my XXXX  filing status and my wife 's student debt. Immediate corrective measures are necessary to address these failures and prevent other borrowers from experiencing similar mismanagement. 

I hope something comes out of this. Especially now, with portions of the SAVE program blocked by out-of-touch federal judges and congressional representatives who think all student borrowers with significant debt are " doctors and lawyers. '' This needs to end.