Consumer complaint received 2023-11-16
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: MOHELA (CA)

I am currently in the process of trying to buy a house, and I need to have my IDR repayment plan approved and forbearance removed to do so. Because of this, it's very important that I was approved for my IDR in a timely manner. I have essentially halted my search process, waiting for the IDR plan to be approved. Despite my personal feelings of urgency, I have patiently waited since XXXX ( XX/XX/XXXX ), as that is when I submitted my IDR request form. In this timeframe, they have also placed me in administrative forbearance and on the Level repayment plan to resume payments. They did this on their own accord. The Level repayment plan is not realistic to my financial situation and would be a hardship to be on, but my understanding is that they are automatically changing people to this plan when they work out their issues. 
As stated, I submitted my IDR request on XX/XX/XXXX, which was 3 months ago, when, to my understanding, the processing time is about 45 days. I called on Monday, XX/XX/XXXX, to be told that there was some kind of system/technical error in my application from XXXX and that they were actually working on applications submitted after mine. She informed me that she needed to re-submit my application but would mark it as needing to be expedited due to my long wait, the system error causing the delay, and having put a bid in for a mortgage. She said it would take about 7 days for it to be processed. I called again today ( XX/XX/XXXX ) as I wanted to ensure everything was in place to receive the IDR statement in about 7 days, as I now urgently need my statement, and was then told that they don't expedite applications despite what the agent on Monday had said. I told them my situation -- that I had submitted the application in XXXX, and the Mohela agent resubmitted it with the intent to expedite ; to which they said they do not expedite applications and that since my application was resubmitted XX/XX/XXXX that the waiting time would start over. I had indicated that this was extremely unfair as : 1 ) I have been waiting for my form to be processed since XXXX.

2 ) The application was resubmitted on my behalf under the assumption that it would be expedited.

3 ) I received information that was false, leading me to essentially be punished time-wise for mistakes on Mohela 's end as the agent resubmitted my application due to some kind of system/technical error.

4 ) I received absolutely no correspondence that there was an issue with my XXXX application, which would have encouraged me to resubmit an application a lot sooner.

5 ) Further, I apparently received blatantly false information from the person at Mohela that I spoke to on Monday, which encouraged me to put in a bid for a house. While she did not provide advice regarding the home process, I was operating under the information that I would receive the statement in 7 days so that I could provide the IDR statement to my mortgage broker. 
The individual I spoke with today ( XX/XX/XXXX ) named XXXX, badge # XXXX, indicated that she had spoke with her supervisor and there was nothing they could do for me as I now had to wait the additional 4 weeks because of the application resubmission on XX/XX/XXXX. Despite letting her know that I did not resubmit that application myself and that it was resubmitted by the agent with the intention of expediting due to a system error, she said it didn't matter since the application was resubmitted. When asking for further clarification as to why I was essentially being punished for Mohela 's mistake, she continuously stated she was receiving information directly from her supervisor. I asked to speak with her supervisor or be provided her supervisor 's information from whom she was receiving her information from, and she would not provide me with that information. After some back and forth, she eventually agreed to transfer me to a supervisor, informing me I would be on hold for at least two hours.