Consumer complaint received 2017-02-18
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with my lender or servicer — Received bad information about my loan
Company: AES/PHEAA (VT)

I am a XXXX and have been wrestling with sky-high student loan debt for 9 years - even under a federal repayment system I managed to accrue interest - the program paid me monthly as if it were a salary, so on my taxes I had to pay federal income taxes on the payments. What was advertised to repay 85 % of my XXXX loans ended up increasing my debt by about 20 % instead. 
Student loans are a racket. The only entity that benefits is the student loan company. I have no control over who my loan servicer is, and before I consolidated, I had XXXX loan servicers. They would change frequently, often selling my loans back and forth to each other - each time, my credit would suffer because the accounts would show up as a new account. I can not refinance or change my interest rate no matter how good my financial situation is. I can not buy a house because the federal home purchase programs continue to change and require using 1 % of the total loan balance rather than the actual payments I am responsible for. 
My current loan servicer, FedLoan Servicing, continuously uses stalling tactics, unclear communication, and misinformation to harm my situation and accrue capitalized interest by delaying processing of an IBR plan - they also do not make it clear which program I qualify for and I am well-versed in the programs. If I had not called in to tell them I could not afford my IBR payments, I never would have known I qualify for another kind. They do not provide an online communication avenue - it only gives a generic response and no ability to resolve via email. They are only open M-F during normal business hours. Their electronic notifications for billing statements do not function, and when a payment becomes overdue while they claim to be waiting for information to process an income driven plan that was in fact sent to them and receipt was verified, it forces the account to capitalize interest ( the most recent delay made them over {$5000.00} in interest ). Over {$120000.00} of my student loan balance is due to interest and capitalized interest. When the delay is of their own making, there is no option to undo the accrued interest charged - they only offer a forbearance period which further increases the balance due when the forbearance period is over. Last year, their delays in processing my paperwork cost me 11 months - 11 months! - of lost paid months towards my Federal Loan Forgiveness under Public Service. There is no option to speak to a supervisor or manager to resolve issues that the loan counselor is unsure of. After being given direction or reassurance, information turns out to be false. I would gladly share all of my details for further investigation. The best possible outcome would be to reverse any accrued interest over the last few years, to credit the lost months due to their ineptitude, and to credit any of the months I have used in forbearance as they were only used due to their own stalling tactics - not because I did not do what was asked of me. The ultimate outcome will be that when I do satisfy my 10yrs of on time IBR payments, the student loan company will be paid off in full, and tax payers will be footing the bill. Over {$200000.00} in interest I am sure will be accrued by then, so they have absolutely no incentive to work with borrowers now. The loan is guaranteed to be paid off and yet they are allowed to charge exceedingly high interest rates and capitlize on a daily basis. Also, no matter how bad their customer service is, I can not change loan servicers - and yet they can sell my loan at any time. Thank you for all you do.