Consumer complaint received 2017-05-26
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: Nelnet, Inc. (OK)

My story involves the Student Loan Servicer Nelnet, and repeated Fraud that I believe occurred on numerous occasions within a 9 month period. Let me note at the outset that the problem was finally fixed after 9 months just recently, and this is because they had so much documentation in front of them that they could no longer raise issues with my account. Let me explain.
My name is XXXX XXXX, and am in the XXXX XXXX stage of my XXXX in XXXX at the University of XXXX XXXX and have been since Spring XX/XX/XXXX ( and have been enrolled since Fall XX/XX/XXXX). While in that stage I have been taking XXXX credit hour per semester. However, because I am XXXX XXXX XXXX that one hour still counts as Full Time for up to XXXX semesters. Unfortunately my school does not automatically count it as Full Time until I give them a form once a semester ( which I turn into them around XX/XX/XXXX/XX/XX/XXXX ). Every year I consistently fill out the form, and then call Nelnet up to ensure that they have received it and for purposes of servicing my student loans have me properly listed as Full Time.
So every year around XX/XX/XXXXI get notices from Nelnet stating that my student loans are due within a few months, and that I must prepare to make payments ( due to the 6 month grace period always being in effect ). Then around late XX/XX/XXXXtoXX/XX/XXXX I always tell them to issue a 60 day hold or deferment on my account so that I can get the half time status fixed to full time in the meantime. This has been something I have consistently done for years now, and it plays like a broken record. I should note before continuing that I had XXXX groups of subsidized student loans, and XXXX group of unsubsidized. The unsubsidized I paid off inXX/XX/XXXX ( all except {$1.00} of it due to accrued interest ).
Afterward, something very interesting happened. In XX/XX/XXXX, for the very first time, I received notices that payment is IMMEDIATELY DUE and that I must begin to make payments or else they will report me to the credit agencies. In fact, they stated that I already missed a payment. What happened to that 6 month grace period, I wondered? To say I was nervous about why this was happening is an understatement. Eventually I discovered something very odd : Nelnet had my XX/XX/XXXX Fall semester listed as half or part time. In other words, my 6 month grace period was already used up. I wondered how I did not notice this inXX/XX/XXXX, but really could not come up with a satisfactory answer for it. In fact, all I could think over and over to myself is that it was simply impossible that this was an issue before as I certainly would have noticed Nelnet telling me before I missed a payment. I really could n't understand how it had gotten changed, and so I went to the appropriate administrators at XXXX and got a signature from them stating that I was in fact full time in Fall ofXX/XX/XXXX ( their own record stated as much ), and attached it to my account page on Nelnet in early XX/XX/XXXX. Problem solved.
Or so I thought. I kept calling inXX/XX/XXXX XX/XX/XXXX, and XX/XX/XXXX wondering when my account would get fixed. They always kept telling me that it would likely get fixed within a week or two, and to simply check back later. After many calls I eventually find out something that shocked me : they are now telling me that my FallXX/XX/XXXX semester is listed as part time. Before I had made absolutely sure from multiple representatives on the other line that Fall XX/XX/XXXX was the only semester that I was listed as part time ( after repeatedly asking them ). In fact they stated, in the calls in XX/XX/XXXX, that my Fall XX/XX/XXXX semester was indeed fixed. But now I had aXX/XX/XXXX2013 issue. So please follow my logic here. 1 ) I did not hear incorrectly from them what they told me multiple times was a Fall XX/XX/XXXX issue. 2 ) If I had an issue for an earlier semester, they would have mentioned those FIRST because THOSE semesters took away my grace period, not the Fall XX/XX/XXXX semester. 3 ) That they did not do this clearly shows that Fall XX/XX/XXXXbeing listed as Part time was a NEW ISSUE introduced to my account in Spring ofXX/XX/XXXX. 4 ) What I suspected was a new issue but could not prove in Fall XX/XX/XXXX with respect to my Fall XX/XX/XXXX semester I now had proof with the Fall XX/XX/XXXX being listed as part time.
To say I was furious was an understatement. I accused Nelnet of fraud multiple times. I was suggesting that they were trying to take away my grace period and force me into earlier payments. They stated to me multiple times that they have no capacity to change records on their own. Repeatedly they pointed to the XXXX XXXX XXXX or whatever its called, and suggested that they only change records based on what my school reports ( they have a man or woman named the " robot '' who changes it ). I blasted them repeatedly for making that suggestion, stating that this issue with respect to either of those semesters never existed before this year, and that no administrator of a school would make the effort to retroactively change a students records from years ago. Of course no nelnet representative ( except one ), never mind the supervisors, would listen to what I was saying and take me at my word, always implying that this issue always existed or that they have no control over it. In fact, both supervisors I spoke to on two separate occasions were the least helpful of the lot, and implied that I was somehow stupid ( for not noticing this before, as if the issue existed longer than simply this year ).
So they suggested inXX/XX/XXXX that I simply get another signature from the administrators. I refused to do this given that I was not on campus ( or in the State ) and did not want to go through the hassle of doing something I should not have been required to do. I asked instead that they call the administrator herself and get the answer that way. They agreed with this solution. I called the administrator and told her of the situation ( including the letter she signed last semester ). She then notified me that XXXX had me listed as Full time in every semester I was enrolled. Which made me curious indeed, and reinforced my belief t
hat Fraud had occurred with my account. Unfortunately, I found out weeks later that after one
attempted call they never again made any attempts to contact the administrator ( only because of my many calls back to Nelnet ) Here I was in early XX/XX/XXXXand already I was getting the same kind of notices about payments being due soon ( with dates listed for when payment is due ). Of course for all these months this issue made me very nervous and was on my mind constantly. Finally I get in touch with the school administrator again myself after repeated attempts, and after a few weeks of delaying her own response to this she finally drafts a notice stating that I was full time not only in Fall XX/XX/XXXX, but also every semester up to Spring XX/XX/XXXX ( due to another issue my Spring XX/XX/XXXX was also accidentally changed to half time after initially being listed full time, but this is irrelevant to the story ). She sends this over to Nelnet, and then I decide to wait just a little over a week and a half.
I call them back and find out that they had failed to fix the issue with respect to my Fall XX/XX/XXXX. They fixed my Fall XX/XX/XXXX, but not my Fall XX/XX/XXXX. Of course I was not pleased. So the representative said he would write an email about my Fall XX/XX/XXXX to the people who fix records. It was then I had a hunch. I knew that they fixed my Fall XX/XX/XXXX, but wondered if they had changed something else in my record. So I ask the representative if there were any other semesters where I was listed less than Full time. Keep in mind this was a question I always asked almost every time I called.
Bombshell : he was telling me, and kept telling after I repeatedly asked him to make sure what he was saying was correct, that my FallXX/XX/XXXX, Fall XX/XX/XXXX, and FallXX/XX/XXXX were also listed as Part time. So I told him what I was saying all along : someone at Nelnet is XXXX with my account, and for them to continue suggesting that it was the National student loan database was a Lie. First they took away my Fall XX/XX/XXXX then when I fixed that it became my FallXX/XX/XXXX, and then my Fall XX/XX/XXXX ( AGAIN ),XX/XX/XXXX, and XX/XX/XXXX. But this time they had nothing to hide behind. The letter the administrator sent listed EVERY SEMESTER I WAS FULL TIME separately, and they had no choice but to fix it. Finally the issue was fixed within a week.