Consumer complaint received 2016-08-11
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with my lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are handled
Company: AES/PHEAA (NY)

I received a letter from FedLoan Servicing for a payment of {$12.00} XX/XX/2016. After confirming they were my new loan servicer, I promptly paid it. I received a bill a week later for over {$600.00}. I called FedLoan to inquire why my bill went from {$12.00} to over {$600.00}. They had no explanation but stated I could enter a payment plan with payments under {$150.00}. I agreed. The CS asked when I could start payments, I stated the XXXX of every month starting in XX/XX/XXXX. I was never told my balance was originally $ XXXX, nor the fees FedLoan added totaling $ XXXX when they acquired my account. During XX/XX/2016, I received a bill for {$180.00} in the mail from FedLoan. I immediately called to inquire why the bill was so high. They stated the bill was higher due to the 60 day deferment, because of this I now owed more. I reveiewed but could n't make sense of the bill. So I checked the FSA website, it stated I owed $ XXXX. When I checked FedLoan 's website of my account, I now owed $ XXXX!!!! How did my bill go from $ XXXX to $ XXXX to now $ XXXX in 120 days? I paid the {$180.00} and began to sift through several letters that made no sense from FedLoan stating I was on IBR ( I 'm not ), that I had requested several deferments ( I had not ) and several letters stating that my bill was going up and interest I now owed because of said deferments. In the end, my payments ballooned from {$12.00} to {$180.00} to now {$190.00}, with the amount owed at $ XXXX. The CS never stated that I would owe $ XXXX for each month I did not pay. If that were the case, I would not have agreed to a later payment date. Who would agree to such exorbitant fees?!? If this is n't predatory loan lending/servicing, I do n't know what is. This simply can not be legal. 1 ) FedLoan did not follow DOE 's guidelines for contacting me to inform me they were my new servicer. I contacted them. 2 ) They did not inform me of my rights as a borrower. The company simply sent me an exorbitant bill with no explanation as to who or why I owed such money.. I simply put it together on my own that it was connected to my student loans. 3 ) The CS agents with whom I spoke did not explain, and I do not feel they were capable of explaining the repayment terms or borrowers rights and options. The CS a ) presented amounts I could pay under several plans, b ) after I chose the plan and amount I could afford to pay, she asked when I could start payments c ) she stated when the payments would be due the and some standard language and hung up. 4 ) NO ONE explained any percentages or amounts that would be added to an account. It seems copious amounts of fees are added to my account every couple of weeks with very little to no explanation and no one that can held accountable for actions and no one with decision making capabilities can ever be reached. I owe $ XXXX and I want to pay it. I do not owe $ XXXX and the DofE needs to be better watchdogs on the loan servicing companies they assign to their borrowers. It 's not enough that the original loans were predatory to begin with ; they hire companies to do thrice as much damage to those that can not afford to pay but try.