Consumer complaint received 12-12-2015 about Debt collection (Federal student loan) with GC Services Limited Partnership (MO).
Issue: False statements or representation
Sub-issue: Attempted to collect wrong amount

Complaint: In XXXX 2015, I entered into an agreement with the collector GC Services working on behalf of the Department of Education to rehabilitate my Federal Student Loan which had gone into default. The deal proffered by GC Svcs was for XXXX monthly payments and a fair amount of paperwork, after which my loan would come out of default and I could resume regular payments. At the time the agreement was entered into, I was not working and so the payment amount was set at {$5.00} per month. Over the last eleven months, GC Svcs has collected eleven payments at the agreed upon amount, on time, without exception. However, over the last eleven months, GC Svcs Collectors have contacted me about every 6-8 weeks to insist that I provide ever greater amounts of income verification, asset verification, forms, applications and submit to untold hours of answering the same questions over and over again on the phone all while threatening to change the payment terms of the original deal or pull the deal entirely. I have spoken with GC Svcs personnel ranging from Collectors to Managers and no one agent of GC Svcs has been able to explain the exact nature of the issue or the status of the agreement made in XXXX. GC Svcs agents have, although, gone to great lengths to obfuscate not only the nature of the agreement and the Student Loan Rehabilitation Program but their legal responsibilities as instrument of the Department of Education and my legal rights as a debtor. After contacting the DOE Ombudsman and the Default Resolution Group, I have been told that indeed, XXXX qualifying payments have been made but that for some reason, GC Svcs has not submitted my Rehabilitation Program paperwork to the DOE. A collection agency behaving deceptively is not remotely surprising but a collection agency acting as instrument for the United States Department of Education, proffering an agreement in their name and then mendaciously threatening to renege on said agreement all while collecting payments made in connection with that agreement is frankly, revolting. Having handled hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills in my life, I am no stranger to debt and I have been exceedingly cooperative and patient over the last eleven months with GC Svcs but my patience is at an end. At best, GC Svcs is incompetent and does not fully understand the role they have been contracted by DOE to perform. At worst they are acting with pure bad faith, using deceit and obfuscation to swindle college students out of their rights as debtors. It is my sincere hope that upon review, the CFPB, The DOE Ombudsman and the FTC will find GC Svcs unfit for continued engagement as a collection agency. I hope for this not because I want to escape my obligation as a debtor and not out of some vindictive impulse to be avenged, but because I - and a XXXX other financially strapped college students - deserve, at the very least, the dignity of an honest broker with whom to work.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation