Consumer complaint received 2024-12-31 00:00:00
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: MOHELA
State: CA

Complaint narrative:
XXXX of my XXXX student loans were forgiven in XX/XX/XXXX through XXXX. MOHELA notified me on XX/XX/XXXX that the balance of these loans was converted to zero, and I logged in to the portal to confirm that this was reflected in my online loan servicing account, and see what impact that would have on my monthly payments for the remaining loans. At this point, I noticed that my monthly auto-pay payment for the XXXX of the month did not appear to be pending for XXXX, and the amount due was showing as {$0.00}. 

I logged back in on XX/XX/XXXX to see if the payment information had been updated, and saw an alert that my XXXX payment had not been received and my account was past due with a balance of {$210.00} due. There was no indication that my normal, scheduled auto-pay payment for XXXX had been made. So, I made a one-time electronic payment for the total balance due ( {$210.00} ) through their website at that time. However, when I checked my online bank information later that day, I discovered that MOHELA had electronically extracted {$330.00} ( which was my monthly payment amount before the XXXX loans were forgiven ) from my checking account on XX/XX/XXXX. 

I called MOHELA on XX/XX/XXXX to request a refund of the {$330.00} they had extracted from my bank account. After waiting XXXX hours on hold, I spoke with a representative who told me that they could not see any indication that MOHELA had extracted this sum from my bank account, but could see that the {$210.00} payment I had initiated was in processing status. They told me they would need to escalate my call to an " advanced '' support line and transferred me to this line. I then waited another XXXX hours before being connected to an " advanced '' agent, who also indicated that they could not find evidence of the XX/XX/XXXX {$330.00} payment. This agent attempted to submit a case request to research the missing payment, but MOHELA 's system apparently rejected that case request and I was instructed that I would need to be transferred to the " supervisor '' line to speak with a supervisor. However, at this point their offices were closing, so I scheduled a call-back for the next day. 

This call-back came at a time I was unable to answer my phone, and when I called the number provided in the voice message a few minutes later, I had to wait on hold for an hour to be connected to a supervisor agent. This person was able to locate the {$330.00} payment, and said she would need to create XXXX cases - the first was to credit the payment to my account, and the send was to request a refund of the deducted {$330.00}. I was told that it will take XXXX business days for my account to be credited for the payment, and then would take an additional 90 days to receive a refund. I don't believe it's appropriate for MOHELA to take this long to issue a refund to me, and would appreciate any help CFPB can offer in getting a refund in a more timely manner. I also feel that their phone wait times are excessively long ( I spent a total of XXXX hours on hold, and XXXX hours total on the phone in order to reach someone who could address my problem ), and MOHELA should be compelled to staff their phone lines appropriately so that wait times to speak to a representative are more reasonable.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation