Consumer complaint received 2019-01-05
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: Nelnet, Inc. (MD)

On XX/XX/XXXX, I called Nelnet to speak with them regarding my student loans that are entering repayment later this month. I explained that I was on an income based repayment plan, but was still unable to afford the payment as calculated. I further explained that I did not want to put the loan in forebearance because I was able to pay something towards the loans, just not the full payment as calculated. XXXX, the customer service representative that I was speaking with attempted to see if I qualified for a deferment. I explained that I did not. XXXX explained that my only other alternative was to put my loans in forebearance. I explained that this didnt make sense and asked if there was any alternative between paying the full amount, which I can not do, and forebearance. XXXX stated there wasnt. I asked what would happen when I ran out of forebearance, stating that there must be some alternative between making an impossible payment and default. XXXX stated there wasnt. I further clarifed that there must be someone in the organization with the authority to offer an alternative in that case and that was the person I wanted to talk to. XXXX then transferred me to XXXX. I explained my situation to XXXX. She again stated that if I could not make my payment and did not qualify for deferment my only option was forebearance. I explained that I only had a year of forebearance left and asked what would happen after that year if I still could not afford my payment. She stated my only option would be to consolidate and then I would get an additional 36 months of forebearance. I disagreed, stating that it didnt make sense that someone willing to pay, but unable to do so had no other alternatives then to keep their loans perpetually in forebearance. I further clarifed that there must be a way to negotiate a feasible payment based on my specific circumstances. Only then did XXXX inform me of the option of the Alternative Payment Plan. 

After XXXX sent over the information for the Alternative Repayment Plan, I asked whether every customer service representative was aware of this option or was that knowledge limited to supervisors. XXXX stated that all were aware. I clarified then that when XXXX told me I had no other alternatives besides forebearance that was in fact untrue and that the kind of repayment plan I was requesting did exist, was not exceptional, and only required one piece of paper to initiate. I further explained that I had serious concerns with how the situation was handled because I was given misinformation and only given correct information after pushing and pushing and pushing. XXXX stated she would retrain XXXX. It is my belief that this is not a training issue. They are intentionally withholding this option from borrowers and only making it known to people who make a fuss. I say this because XXXX gave me the same misinformation XXXX did and only offered the Alternative Repayment Plan when I kept pushing and didnt accept the answer that forebearance was my only option. There are many similarly situated borrowers that would have accepted XXXX and XXXX first answer, never knowing that exactly what they need was an available option that was merely being withheld from them.