Consumer complaint received 2022-11-25
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: MOHELA (NY)

The fraud being executed is the XXXX program. I was told explicitly this was a scam when I attempted to get the wet signature from my employer. They reported that despite hundreds of submissions no more than two or three total people had actually had successful discharge of their loans. They stated the reasons were varied and always fraudulent. Examples include " missing sections '' of scanned documents, " missing signatures '' or our private university " not being a qualifying employer. '' I figured, I had to try, and did just that. In earnest, I filled out and submitted each section of my application thoughtfully and thoroughly. I reread instructions several times and made sure I was completing everything and doing so correctly. Once I submitted it, I made the mistake of waiting. I then got the most ridiculous correspondence which basically implied I submitted a blank document. It stated several pieces of information were missing, ( which were objectively NOT missing. ) it stated my employment verification was missing. It was NOT missing. I called Mohela several times and waited on hold. I was finally able to reach someone and she told me that she had " no idea '' why they sent me that document when she could clearly see the application in it's entirety. She said there was a spot on the scan that looked like it had shadow. She theorized that perhaps that was the part the initial person looking at the documents said was too unclear to read - so she suggested I resubmit the employment verification. I specifically asked her several times if she was SURE that was all I needed to do to initiate the my application would move on to the next stage of processing. She said yes, and I did that immediately. Shortly after, I called and spoke with another representative who confirmed receipt of the new employment verification and then told me the 90 business day window would start right then. This upset me greatly as I had initially submitted my application months prior, and now we were going to be passing the XXXX deadline by the end of the 90 days. She also then stated it could be sooner, but even if not, I woud n't need to worry about it because everything was *submitted* and *received* much before the deadline. 
Then I made another mistake and waited. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, I found myself with a few spare moments between jobs, and I decided to look to see if perhaps I had missed any messages from Mohela about my loan forgiveness. You can imagine my surprise when the computer screen is showing me ZERO documents on file or having been submitted. I requested digitally to view my application and the response was there was no application. 
I called Mohela immediately. Somewhat reassuringly she let 's me know I do in fact have an account but that they can't do anything with it because there is a page one missing. She said she could see where I resubmitted the employment verification but that they really need all the pages to be resubmitted at the same time. 
My issues are the following : That not only sounds like a lie that was made up on the spot, like everything else I've been told, but if in fact that was the case, why have I not heard anything from anyone about this? The representative was also unable to answer whether or not the 90 day clock starts now, when I first applied, when I resent in the employment verification or some future, yet unknown date when I might resubmit the entire application AGAIN so that it's all together. Give me a break. 
So, I asked her to walk me through the steps I need to take to ensure ( again ) that I'm doing everything needing done on my end. This was when we log in to mohela -- she directs me to sign in and select " upload documents '' -- at which point the error message comes back that they have incomplete demographic information for me. 
Again, glaring red flags of fraud. Not only had I signed in to an account I've been repaying for close to 20 years, ( they certainly had no trouble identifying any demographic information when money was being paid ) but the first few minutes of my phone call were spent going over every possible bit of demographic information to include my SS #, address, phone number, email, birthdate, etc. 
I realize no one is entitled to loan forgiveness. But I think it's disgusting to LIE and say that a certain population of citizens are in fact, entitled to loan forgiveness, and absolutely perpetuate scam after scam and lie after lie in order to avoid actually following through on those loan discharges. And I'm pretty sure the person ( if there is one ) reading this couldn't care less about my grievance, but there are so many people for whom this opportunity represented much more than just loan forgiveness. It meant hope, and the possibility of getting out of debt some time before we're old or dead. It's the meanest thing to do to a person, to offer them false hope, so shame on you. You've succeeded in that I will give up. I will throw my hands up and not attempt again what is a futile endeavor. And I'm not alone -- and I know the more of me there are the more successful the fraud has become. Again, shame on you- and I hope the victims of this are able to come together and make clear just how damaging this process is.