Consumer complaint received 2020-02-18
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Problem with customer service
Company: AES/PHEAA (PA)

This year I decided to make tackling my student loan debt a priority. After investigating some options, I decided to go with making daily payments on my AES serviced loans. Before setting up a single payment, I perused the information available on payments in the FAQ section of the AES website. Finding no information on payment limits, I set up several payments. After seven were set up a pop up box appeared on the payment screen stating that I only had one more payment available to me for this month, as the limit is eight. Upon seeing this I immediately called and spoke with a representative ( I can provide name and employee ID if requested ) who I explained my situation to. She was confused, having never heard of this eight payments per month limitation. I was placed on hold as she conferred with someone else. I advised that if they needed to confirm the policy with people who had already left for the day ( the call occurred at approx. XXXX ) that I would be willing to have a call back. The representative advised me that while there was an eight payment limit on electronic payments, that I could make as many payments as I wished over the phone. I therefore set up daily payments from XX/XX/XXXX - XX/XX/XXXX. Those five payments were set up via phone that evening. At that time I already had set up two payments on the AES website, one was a payoff for the smallest of my loans, the other was my regular payment for the month of XXXX. The daily payments were to begin the day after. 

Let me be very clear here, I would not have set up those five payments over the phone if the representative had made the eight payment per month policy known to me during that conversation.

My husband and I went away this past weekend. This morning I sat down to call AES and schedule my next round of daily payments. I called and spoke with a representative ( their name and employee ID can be provided if needed ) and explained that I wished to set up seven payments beginning with today, XX/XX/XXXX and ending with XX/XX/XXXX. After setting up the first payment the representative received a notice that I had reached the limit of eight payments per calendar month. I explained to the representative what the previous representative had told me. Over the next 30-40 minutes he and I went back and forth on trying to figure out what the payment limit policy of AES was. During one of the longer holds, I was able to find a policy stating that you can only make eight payments in a 60 day period. At one point the representative tried to use the pop up that states I have reached my limit of payments for this month as the policy for me to refer to, despite my having never seen the pop-up in the approximately eight years in which I have been using the AES website to make payments on my private student loans. In the course of my conversation with the representative I was given multiple possibilities as to what the policy is : 1 ) 8 electronic payments per calendar month, 2 ) 8 electronic payments per 30 days, 3 ) 8 payments in a 60 day period. He assured me that I would be able to make a payment on XX/XX/XXXX, 30 days from today, though I could try making another before then and the system MAY take it. I pointed out that this would be five days AFTER my XXXX payment would be due, thus acquiring a late fee and more interest. He assured me that AES would not charge me a late fee or report the late payment to the credit bureaus. After asking the representative how I was to trust his assertion that I would be able to make another payment on XX/XX/XXXX he offered to pass me along to someone above him to confirm his story. I thanked him for his attempts to help me with this situation and apologized if I was testy with him due to my stress about the situation and asked to be transferred on. 

Then began my long, thoroughly stressful conversation with a supervisor ( their name and employee ID can be provided if needed ) who confirmed that she did not know the details of my situation and only knew that I was looking for information on making payments. I reviewed my situation with her, stressing that I am looking to find out what the official AES policy on making payments is and needing to know when I can make payments again. Through the course of this conversation she avoided answering several of my questions, was vague in her responses, and ultimately unable to confirm what the payment limit policy was. She offered to send my case to a financial department to review my case so as to determine exactly when I would be able to make another payment. Multiple times I attempted to get a straight answer as to what the policy is and where it can be located. Towards the end of the conversation she admitted to me that she could not find anything on the website about the payment limit except on this page : https : //www.aessuccess.org/manage/repaying_your_loan/ways_to_pay/index.shtml ( go to Advance Payments at the far right ) I would like to point out and stress that this page is not accessible once a consumer is logged into their AES profile XXXX It can be reached on the main AES Success page before a consumer logs in. If it is possible to access after logging in then it is extremely well hidden as I have spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how I even found this page in the first place. It must have happened when I timed out of my profile while waiting on hold. 

Over the course of my conversation with the supervisor, she, like the representative before her, was unable to provide me a location of the accurate, up to date payment limit policy for electronic payments. She directed me towards the above site, stating that that is the only policy she was able to find on the site. I pointed out to her that the policy on that page does not match what she is telling me the policy is. I bluntly said something to the effect of You cant provide me with a policy, can you?. She advised that she can have someone send me a written copy but was unable to provide me with a location on the website that states the policy she was asking me to accept. She was unable to confirm that the policy she maintained as the true policy ( 8 payments in a calendar month ) is actually the correct policy, as her solution of sending my case to be reviewed by another department indicates that she was not 100 % confident in her answer. In all honesty, by this point in the conversation my stress did result in a harsh tone with the representative, who I felt was attempting to distract, cajole, and avoid my questions in an effort to dismiss me and get me to go away. I did hang up on her after voicing my dissatisfaction with AES as a company. 

I am submitting this complaint to you because I need to know what AES 's policy is. The ignorance of their employees on their companys policies has resulted in a situation that could have been easily avoided if the information had been made available. The policy that was available on their website does not match what I was told by AES representatives on two separate phone calls from three separate representatives.

My goal is simple, to pay back the money I borrowed in order to obtain my education. I am willing to abide by whatever AESs official policy is on the number of payments that I can make. However, I can not do that until I am aware of what that policy is.