Consumer complaint received 2024-12-30 00:00:00
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: Nelnet, Inc.
State: WA

Complaint narrative:
My consolidation loan started in a timely fashion, XX/XX/year>, before the deadline to receive the benefit of the payment count adjustment. My consolidation loan was disrupted by Nelnet errors and had to be repaired, but it clearly contains underlying loans with a payment count of XXXX. The Department of Education directed servicers, when applying the payment count adjustment, to apply the highest count of the underlying loans to all consolidation loans that were started before the deadline of XX/XX/year>. I would like Nelnet to properly apply the payment count adjustment to my consolidation loan, as my adjusted count should be XXXX ( which is the highest count of the underlying loans, plus XXXX post-consolidation payment for which I received credit before the SAVE injunction ) -- not XXXX. 

My consolidation loan process did not complete until XX/XX/year>. The lengthiness of the process was entirely due to Nelnet 's errors. ( Please note my prior CFPB complaint, which led to the beginning of a resolution of this issue -- the reinstatement of the loans, erroneously forgiven and removed from my consolidation loan, due to the failure of Nelnet to honor my opt-out request in XX/XX/year>. ) The two loans with the payment count of XXXX had to be reinstated and put back into my consolidation loan. 

When I checked the XXXX file on studentaid.gov to see my consolidation loan 's payment count, it said XXXX until around XX/XX/year>. Soon after that, it was updated to XXXX. I waited to see if it would update further, as other borrowers have stated that their number has changed over time, but my number is still XXXX as of today, XX/XX/year>. I called Nelnet earlier this month to ask about my count, and they confirmed that what they have for me is credit for only XXXX payments, not the XXXX that it should be. 

I have included some supporting documentation consisting of screenshots from my XXXX file, which is available on the studentaid.gov website, and displays a temporary payment counter for non-PSLF borrowers. These images show my consolidation loan counts and the pre-consolidation counts of my underlying loans. Nelnet confirmed the XXXX count from the consolidation loan -- displayed as loans XXXX and XXXX, split into subsidized and unsubsidized portions. Loans XXXX to XXXX are the underlying loans that make up the consolidation as a whole. It is clear to see that many of them had a count of XXXX prior to consolidation, as that number appears repeatedly in the data. But there are also the XXXX loans with a count of XXXX. Even though this XXXX file is not official, of course those XXXX loans were forgiven and had to be reinstated, so they must have a count over XXXX. My student loans include XXXX XXXX loans, and the forgiveness threshold for graduate borrowers is XXXX payments. 

So, it seems that my consolidation loan has received credit only for the loans that were not removed from my consolidation by Nelnet. I would like to point out here that I would never have consolidated if not for the promise of the highest payment count -- no one would have. Consolidating caused me to capitalize almost {$50000.00} of outstanding interest. If I am denied the benefit of the payment count adjustment, not only will I be denied the forgiveness of my XXXX  debt, but also the interest on my consolidation loan will rise at a much faster pace, as the interest will now grow on a principal that doubled. Nelnet has caused me great financial harm, unless they take this opportunity to correct their errors. 

Nelnet 's customer service has told me they can't fix the problem and that " there is not yet a grievance process for wrong counts ''. They have probably been instructed to tell borrowers that they can not update the count if it is wrong -- advice meant to throttle the increase of their workload, in my opinion, as at the same time they offer that guidance, they follow it up by stating that the payment count is not done, which would seem to indicate that they could be fixing their errors. They tell borrowers that they should just wait and watch. They are also telling borrowers that the servicers aren't doing the recount, that the XXXX XXXX XXXX is doing it. Meanwhile, the XXXX XXXX XXXX, if you call them, tells you that the servicers are doing the recount. We all know that the XXXX XXXX XXXX uses servicers to actually provide their customer service, and directs them to perform various functions and services. And the XXXX XXXX XXXX already told Nelnet to apply the highest count of the underlying loans to the payment count of these consolidation loans. Please pressure them to do their job, on my behalf. 

I believe there is no need to wait for the formulation of a " grievance process for wrong counts '' in my case ; my case is different from those that will inevitably require future investigation, research, and time to determine their correct count, for the following reasons : ( XXXX ) the data is present, able to be counted now, ( XXXX ) the data was temporarily deleted due to servicer error, when Nelnet disrupted my consolidation, ( XXXX ) the payment count is ongoing at the time of my request of Nelnet, and, ( XXXX ) Nelnet has the opportunity to avoid causing me serious financial harm, not to mention further stress, because of their errors, and they should take this opportunity. 

I have escalated my issue with Nelnet to their " Leadership Team '', but I don't believe they will take care of me without outside pressure. When they replied to my previous CFPB inquiry, they did not take ownership of their error ; they ignored the proof of my request to opt out of forgiveness on XX/XX/year>, the day I began the consolidation of all my loans, and characterized it as something that did not happen until XX/XX/year>, after they finished dealing with my consolidation, without the only XXXX loans that would give me any benefit of the payment count adjustment. 

At any rate, with close to {$100000.00} on the line, plus more crushing debt to come if the problem isn't fixed, the stakes are too high for me to wait and watch. CFPB helped me before, and I am hoping you can help me again.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation