Consumer complaint received 2022-01-27
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: HEARTLAND PAYMENT SYSTEMS INC (WA)

CFPB Team : I am writing you to submit a formal complaint directed at the servicer of one of my student loans. The servicer in question is Heartland ESCI, XXXX ID XXXX. The loan is a XXXX loan with an original balance of {$5500.00}. The loan, along with several other student loans, has not had payments made due to my grace period + COVID forbearance. 

I was made aware of an issue on XXXX where a third-party credit service ( XXXX ) notified me that one of my accounts was in derogatory status on my credit report. This resulted in a 40-50 point drop in my score right as I'm trying to purchase a home. When I looked into the issue, I did not recognize the name of the loan servicer and initially thought it might be fraud as I recently experienced a break in. I checked the third-party site and it appeared to be related to a student loan. 

Earlier today ( XXXX ) I logged into the XXXX XXXX XXXX portal and viewed my dashboard. All of my loans except one ( the one in question ) are federally held and thus in forbearance. The other is a XXXX XXXX XXXX issued by the XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX ID XXXX. The portal noted that my loan status had changed on XX/XX/2021 to Repayment. 

The basis of my complaint is that the new servicer, Heartland ESCI, failed to notify me that they were now my servicer and that I had entered repayment. The XXXX XXXX XXXX similarly failed to notify me that my account had been transferred and that it would go to repayment. I have received no correspondence, written or digital, from either party regarding this account. The first I was notified of a status change was when the account had already been placed in derogatory status. 

As soon as I learned that they held my loan and that it was considered derogatory, I made two separate payments : 1 ) Payment of {$240.00}, which was the " delinquent '' balance on my loan + their {$.00} convenience fee. 2 ) Payment of {$5300.00} + their {$.00} convenience fee. This satisfied my account balance in full. I will obtain a Paid in Full letter from Heartland ASAP and add it to this inquiry. I have attached screenshots of the payments for now. I paid the account in full to immediately demonstrate my good faith and that I was not a delinquent borrower ; I simply did not know that the status of this account was changed and allege that the servicer Heartland ESCI failed to notify me most likely through negligence. 

Additionally, I attempted to call Heartland ESCI to discuss the issue and could not get through. I was able to reach a representative through online chat. Once I made my request and frustration known, I asked to speak with an escalations manager. They promptly told me to try calling later and ended the chat, refusing to engage on the issue whatsoever.

I have opened up disputes with each of the three bureaus and am writing letters to the XXXX XXXX XXXX  and to my congressman, XXXX XXXX WA XXXX  XXXX to similarly describe the issue. 

Please review the attached supporting documentation where I have included records of my payments and my conversation with ESCI support which was remarkably unhelpful. 

Attached : 1 ) Chat Archive with Heartland. 2 ) Documentation of Payment 1. 3 ) Documentation of Payment 2. 4 ) My balance on Heartland 's Portal so you can see I have satisfied the balance in full. I will update this request with the Paid in Full letter ASAP. 

Please let me know if you need anything else to assist. My objective is simply to successfully dispute this item on my credit and assistance form the CFPB will be invaluable. 

All the Best, XXXX