Consumer complaint received 2024-02-21
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Problem with customer service
Company: MOHELA (WI)

Today SAVE loans are being forgiven, and mine should be included, but MOHELA has delayed processing of my SAVE loan payment plan. I am also still waiting for a refund from the payment I made in XXXX, XXXX. I thought I was enrolling into SAVE when payments first resumed. I was told I didn't qualify for the plan I applied for due to income, and MOHELA then defaulted to a level repayment which is unacceptable for PSLF individuals like myself. Just one of the many, many incompetent moves on the part of MOHELA. Then I enrolled in a different IDR plan. This took months to go through. I was one of the people that never received a billing statement, but I paid and I am still waiting for a refund of that XX/XX/2023 payment. I had assumed it would just be credited to my account for a future payment but it was not. When I recently called them, they admitted I should be refunded or credited -- it does not appear they were going to do either unless and until I called. Now I found out there are NOT income caps on the SAVE plan, so I don't know why I was originally told I did not qualify. 

Because my loan should be in the group forgiven today- will I be refunded for my XXXX and future payments once MOHELA finally finishes updating my payment plan? Why is this taking so long when the proces should be automated and MOHELA had years to prepare for loans resuming? 

I never reached an employee that is not 'in training '. MOHELA keeps saying this is unprecedented, but again- they had years to prepare and were pushing for payments to resume sooner, so the company should have been overstaffed and completely prepared. Looks like they did just the opposite. It also appears MOHELA is taking on more loans, even though they are not properly servicing the loans they current hold. This is outrageous. 

1 ) When will my payment plan be updated and why is this taking so long? It shouldn't take multiple months. Will I be refunded for future payments because MOHELA 's delay is going to prevent my loan from being forgiven in this first batch of SAVE loans forgiven. The delay is clearly intentional. 

2 ) when will I receive my refund for the XX/XX/2023 payment Mohela still has not refunded or credited? 

MOHELA was going to keep my XXXX payment until I recently asked for it back. Why? Incompetence or greed? Please explain. These delays are earning MOHELA a lot of money, especially as it appears the company intends to keep money that is not owed unless the consumer realizes the company was supposed to give it back and asks for it. I am still waiting to find out if I will ever get that. 

MOHELA is clearly delaying on purpose for the purpose of increasing profits on the interest earned on money that isn't theirs. Leaving me a couple of remaining questions, this time for the federal government ; why was MOHELA awarded more contracts when it is completely mishandling the contracts it is currently servicing? I do want an answer to this. Why is it all MOHELA? There's no incentive for the company to improve and start managing things correctly when they have been given ALL the contracts and there is XXXX competition. Finally, which government officials own interests in MOHELA? 

If you have not, check out the MOHELA and PSLF subreddits on XXXX.