Consumer complaint received 2017-08-30
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: AES/PHEAA (CA)

AES ( XXXX ) allows borrowers to adjust their auto-debit instructions to authorize an extra amount to withdraw in addition to the regular monthly payment amount. This process works by submitting an application and upon review and approval by an AES agent, the next billing statement will include the additional authorized amount ... Or at least that is how all of AES ' online information and emailed disclosures indicate what will happen. My experience has been such that AES incorrectly applied _double_ the additional amount I authorized and has failed to take corrective actions in the intervening three months of phone calls I 've had with them to fix their billing error. 

The entire situation kicked off on the night of XX/XX/XXXX when I initiated the request to alter my auto-debit agreement to include an additional {$75.00} be debited along with my regular monthly payment. I 've attached screenshots of my application that shows my payment elections ( Monthly payment : {$77.00} + Additional Payment amount {$75.00} = Total Direct Debit amount of {$150.00} ). On XX/XX/XXXX, I received two different message in my secure inbox indicating that my Direct Debit agreement has been approved and correctly showed the payments as monthly minimum + {$75.00}, and the second message indicated that the debit agreement had been successfully modified, again correctly showing the 'additional withdrawal amount ' as {$75.00}. From this point forward, all future billing correspondence has been incorrect, attempting to withdraw more than the authorized amount. 

Per the wording in the 2nd message I received on XX/XX/XXXX, I expected my XX/XX/XXXX auto-debit bill to reflect a total payment composed of the minimum payments for both of my loans : $ XXXX {$37.00} plus the additional authorized amount of {$75.00} -- $ XXXX $ XXXX $ XXXX {$150.00}. A day went by and there was no change in the AES portal to reflect that the revised billing had taken effect so I submitted another revision to my Direct Debit authorized with the same {$75.00} request, this time though there was no communication from AES about the receipt of the change, it was only upon contacting support on the XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX that they revealed they had received the change request and that it had no effect on the auto debit as it authorized the exact same amount as my original change request. 

XX/XX/XXXX 's Direct Debit statements was then generated and the statement showed that I had one loan with a balance due, but more importantly that the " Additional Direct Debit Amount Requested '' was somehow now {$150.00} -- twice the additional amount I authorized and in direct contradiction to all correspondence I had received about the changes to my Direct Debit agreement. The web portal showed an entirely different autodebit amount that was neither my original minimum payment amount, the correct auto-debit amount, or the amount reflected in the statement PDF in mailbox. At this point I started calling AES to try get to a human and get things straightened out : XX/XX/XXXX - Call to AES support, explaining the situation as outlined above. The agent saw both of my Direct Debit applications and indicated that both applications had been received and approved, but that the additional authorized amount on those applications shows only the {$75.00} amount and that the Backoffice Direct Debit team must have made an error when processing the requests. The agent indicated that the Direct Debit team does not take calls and that the only way to reach them was via email. The agent proceeded to email this team on my behalf and ask them to correct my auto-debit application. The agent also indicated that there was no way for support agents to adjust auto-debit amounts and that the only mechanism available to them was to 'suspend the auto debit ' for XX/XX/XXXXand have me manually arrange for payment on XX/XX/XXXX. I repeated this information to the agent to make sure I had correctly understood what was going to happen and that I understood that I needed to take action to arrange the correct payment myself. We then terminated the call. 

XX/XX/XXXX - A week had gone by and I had not heard or seen any corrections take place on my AES portal or message center, so I contacted support again. The state of the world was unchanged, and the request to the Direct Debit team had not yet been completed. This new agent reconfirmed that I needed to take action to setup payment for XX/XX/XXXX. After getting an update for a separate, unrelated matter, we terminated the call. 

XX/XX/XXXX - I manually arranged for a {$100.00} payment satisfying the minimum payments and including a small additional payment amount. This payment was correctly reflected on the ledgers to my satisfaction and remains correctly reflected in ledgers to this day. 

XX/XX/XXXX - XX/XX/XXXX statements were generated and once again, the online portal and statement PDF show different, incorrect payment amounts. I call support again, jumping through their phone tree to get to a human as quickly as possible. For the third time, I go through this chain of events and the agent I 'm speaking with reconfirms that the changes to auto-debit only authorize an additional {$75.00} not {$150.00} as is shown in the XX/XX/XXXX statement. He proceeded to reinforce the message that the Direct Debit team is the only group that is capable of fixing this error and that he would need to cancel my XX/XX/XXXX auto debit once again and email them again to get this corrected. He proceeded to process each of those actions and read the email he was sending to make sure it was factually correct as best I could recall. He then also indicated that he would continue to watch the account and call me as soon as he heard back from the Direct Debit team. Once again, I repeated back the instructions and impact to ensure I had correctly understood what I needed to do -- arrange for a manual payment on XX/XX/XXXX as AES would not be making an auto-debit on my behalf. We then terminated the call as I had again done everything in my power to advise AES of their miscalculation and to be proactive in getting the error corrected as swiftly as possible. 

XX/XX/XXXX - Over the last 15 days I 've logged into my account to monitor the state of my direct debit and continued to find that the portal continues to indicate that a direct debit will be processed on XX/XX/XXXX in an amount that is close to the expected amount but still not the amount I authorized, and the presence of this amount is in direct contradiction to what was relayed to me on the XX/XX/XXXX call. At this point, I 'm getting fairly good as navigating the AES phone tree and the lovely agent I spoke with this time took extra time to get another set of eyes on my account. I went through the chain of events again so that she 'd had the full context of what is going on and she confirmed that the XX/XX/XXXX Direct Debit Team request had not yet been processed and that the XX/XX/XXXX direct debit had been suspended. As such I still needed to arrange for a payment on XX/XX/XXXX manually just as I had for XX/XX/XXXX. I confirmed with her that I still see the debit scheduled in my interface and asked her to reconfirm that I would not see both the payment I will arrange for XX/XX/XXXX and an auto-debit hit at the same time. She indicated that is was most definitely suspended so I should be OK for my manual payment on XX/XX/XXXX. She annotated my account with the notes from the call and indicated that there was no estimated timeline for when the Direct Debit team would complete the request and that there was no way to contact the Direct Debit team directly. 

At this point, I have tried every avenue available to me at the AES portal and phone support to get this matter addressed but continue to go through waiting and phone call cycles with no measurable forward progress. I am seeking to get my account corrected such that 1 ) the statements issued to my account accurately reflect the true nature of the payments due with respect to authorized auto-debit instructions, 2 ) the AES portal accurately reflects the nature and amounts of scheduled or cancelled auto-debit instructions, and 3 ) these extra payment amounts are correctly applied to my loans as per my standing instructions. 

I have attached a number of files showing the status of the Direct Debit application, the approvals of the changes, the payments as scheduled and show in the portal, the direct debit statements for XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX.