Consumer complaint received 2020-04-28
Product: Debt collection — Federal student loan debt
Issue: Attempts to collect debt not owed — Debt is not yours
Company: AES/PHEAA (IN)

A bill from a collection agency called XXXX  XXXX XXXX arrived at our house in early XXXX claiming {$98000.00} in defaulted student loans. We thought it was some kind of phishing scam where you are outraged over the amount and call the phone number on the bill and they get you to provide personal information to " confirm '' your identity, so we ignored it. Also, I never had a single student loan, we hold no debt other than our mortgage, and the name it was addressed to was our last name, but not the correct spelling of my first name. Finally, none of the contact information on the bill they sent matched a single piece of contact information on the website for this company, so we gave it no thought. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, another letter arrived at our address, same wrong spelling of my first name. This letter was from PHEAA ( Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency ) stating that they had previously sent a notice from the United States Department of Education stating that they were going to garnish any monies received from the Treasury Department, but they've decided to suspend that action at this time. I have no idea what that means. At this point, this was the first item received at our address from PHEAA and we've lived at the same address for nearly 17 years. I first confirmed that the contact information in the letter matched the contact information on PHEAA 's website. I attempted several times to reach a person over the phone but after waiting on hold over 30 minutes each attempt, I chose to send a letter on XX/XX/XXXX via certified mail instead. In that letter, I included a completed official Direct Credit Dispute Form, and I informed them that they have the wrong person, that I have no account with them, and that I have never had any student loan of any kind. I provided them a copy of the two items our house had received by mail, but I did not provide them with any significant personal information because it's not my account and those two items were the sole pieces of information we had at that point! 

Their response was received on XX/XX/XXXX and XXXX, XXXX in the form of three items. One is a response stating that they do not have enough information to process my request and to send them a copy of my drivers license and social security card. The second item was a copy of all the loan paperwork for this account, with none of the information omitted or obscured, meaning that they sent me someone's social security number, birth date, and address at the time of the loans. The third item was a letter stating that they have investigated my dispute and decided that the account is mine ( it is not ). I mailed out a response today, XX/XX/XXXX, via certified mail. I reiterated that the account is not mine, that they have the wrong person. I included a photocopy of my driver 's license, which is a REAL ID, not simply a regular license, showing that my DOB is not the same as that of the loan applicant. I also included a small portion my recent credit report, showing all of my addresses since the early XXXX 's, none of which are even in the same state as the loan applicant. This small portion also included my year of birth, and my married name and maiden name, neither of which matches the spelling of the name on the account PHEAA is attempting to collect on. I did not send a copy of my social security card. They've already demonstrated that they mishandle that information. I only supplied the last 4 digits of my SSN, which are different than that of the person who took out the loan. 
I am not concerned that someone has stolen my identity, because my credit report shows nothing of the sort and none of the information for the loan PHEAA claims is mine matches any of my personal information. I am deeply concerned that a financial institution can begin sending collection notices to random citizens that happen to share a common last name with someone who owes them money. My first name is spelled differently than this person, my birth date is completely different than this person, my social security number is completely different from this person. I do not know how PHEAA chose to associate my address with the account, but they certainly did not do their due diligence before turning the account over to a collection agency. Any help to ensure that PHEAA removes my address from this account and ceases to attempt to collect from me a debt that is not mine, would be greatly appreciated.