Consumer complaint received 2017-11-21
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: AES/PHEAA (IL)

My complaint centers around how XXXX XXXX is counting the number of payments I have made that qualify toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness. I work for a XXXX   organization. I have worked fulltime at the same XXXX continuously and at all times since XX/XX/XXXX. I have substantial student loans that all qualify for PSLF after 120 months of full and timely payments on a qualifying income-based payment plan. Choosing to continue working at a non-profit has been largely driven by the ability to obtain PSLF and I fear XXXX XXXX is not maintaining accurate records of my eligibility, etc. 

( 1 ) XXXX must confirm that my loans qualify for PSLF ( 2 ) XXXX must confirm that I am in a qualifying repayment plan ( 3 ) XXXX has not updated my monthly statements to accurately state the number of PSLF payments I have made since at least XX/XX/XXXX. The statement dated XX/XX/XXXX claims I have made only 31 PSLF payments. The statement dated XX/XX/XXXX claims the same ( 31 PSLF payments ). I have not missed any payments and all of my payments should qualify for PSLF. I was told that this figure on the monthly statements takes 6 months to update. However, if this PSLF figure is on monthly statements, it should be accurately updated on a monthly basis! 

( 4 ) Regardless, XXXX is still counting my PSLF payments incorrectly. After I began working, in XX/XX/XXXX, I was in a short-term forbearance for only a few months and did not make payments for my student loans. Beginning in XX/XX/XXXX, though, my income-based repayments were {$0.00}. Despite my payments being XXXX, I made monthly payments of at least {$25.00} after confirming with XXXX XXXX that these payments would count toward PSLF because they were full " monthly payments '' and were timely. 

I have recertified my employment status several times since XX/XX/XXXX and I have never missed a qualifying income-based payment ( other than the early and initial forbearance period ). However, not only have my monthly statements not properly updated as described above, XXXX is misstating the number of PSLF payments I have made. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I received notice that my PSLF employment has been verified again, but that my " qualifying '' PSLF payments are only 44. 

THIS IS WRONG. 

The XX/XX/XXXX statement breaks down the qualifying payments as follows : ** XX/XX/XXXX -   XX/XX/XXXX - XXXX payments ( forbearance ) ** XX/XX/XXXX - XX/XX/XXXX - 31 payments ( THIS IS WRONG ) ** XX/XX/XXXX - XX/XX/XXXX - 13 payments ( this is correct ) Between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX I made at least 45 qualifying PSLF payments instead of the 31 counted by XXXX XXXX. Therefore, I believe XXXX XXXX is shorting me by at least 14 qualifying payments.

Again, I have worked for the same non-profit full-time since XX/XX/XXXX. Other than the short 3 month forbearance, I have always remitted full monthly payments on time. XXXX should acknowledge that I have made at least 58 qualifying PSLF payments rather than the 44 it  currently claims. 

I have a suspicion that XXXX is not counting the payments I made while my income-based repayment plan required monthly payments of {$0.00}. However, I made payments of {$25.00} per month during that period because I was told numerous times this would be sufficient and would qualify as a full monthly payment toward PSLF. I was told and confirmed from XXXX that making NO PAYMENT when my payment was {$0.00} would count toward PSLF. 

I have attempted to resolve this with XXXX by discussing it with their customer service. I have been told that their statements take up to 6 months to update. I have submitted correspondence to them in detail through their online portal. I never received a response whatsoever.