Consumer complaint received 2025-07-29 00:00:00
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Don't agree with the fees charged
Company: MOHELA
State: NC

Complaint narrative:
I am in the SAVE Plan. In XXXX of XXXX, I received a letter that said I was being put in a forbearance effective XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX. I called Mohela to question this, and was told I was put into the " recalculation forbearance '' because at the time, there was a change to the SAVE plan that was going to lower the monthly principal amount. This was to be a one month INTEREST FREE forbearance from XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX. I made my last payment under the XXXX plan on XX/XX/XXXX. My accrued interest after that payment was {$0.00}. On XX/XX/XXXX, the interest rate on my loan reverted to 0 %, just as it was supposed to. Between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX of XXXX, XXXX things happened : XXXX. I received a notification that I was being switched to a new servicer around XX/XX/XXXX. I received notification that Mohelas web portal would be unavailable. I lost all visibility to the account for about 2 weeks. 
XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, the federal injunction came down and effectively froze the SAVE plan. So that INTEREST FREE forbearance continued indefinitely. As you now know, the forbearance will continue, but your account will begin accruing interest again on XX/XX/XXXX. 
XXXX. On or about XX/XX/XXXX, I received notification that the new servicer website was up and running. I signed in and my account was still with Mohela ( it was not with a new servicer ). My account was still in the forbearance, but it was now accruing interest. 
I called Mohela several times between last XXXX and this past XXXX to try to have this corrected. Mohela 's response was that Federal Student Aid needed to make this adjustment. I spoke with FSA, and they said that is ridiculous I agree ) and that Mohela needs to service the loan. During one call with Mohela, a supervisor told me she would send the account up for an audit. They sent me a financial report that shows the correct amount of interest as of XX/XX/XXXX. There should only be {$560.00} accrued interest on my larger loan and {$32.00} accrued interest on my smaller loan. I will attach that report. Their report corroborated what I was telling them, yet they refused to fix this. I called FSA again and they suggested I file a complaint via the FSA website, which I did ( reference case XXXX, which is closed and I will detail at the end of this ). Filing that complaint proved to be a waste of time. 
Mohela finally made interest adjustments in XXXX, and months worth of additional interest were wiped off the balance. 
Here 's the problem : My interest free timeframe was only set retroactive to XX/XX/XXXX. It should have been set to XX/XX/XXXX. I am being charged 2 months of interest incorrectly. I checked and confirmed this with FSA. All loans in the SAVE plan have been interest free since XX/XX/XXXX. 

I called again on XX/XX/XXXX because these loans are about to start accruing interest again. I want to refinance to a different lender because I can get a lower rate. I cant refinance until Mohela fixes the balance, because they are now saying that they had put me into a 60 day " processing forbearance '' ( which bears interest ) from XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX while they changed their website platform. This was never mentioned to me before, and its not consistent with what they have been telling me for the past several months. I just now spoke to a supervisor at Mohela who told me that she is seeing several of these complaints coming through. She's submitting them for review and Mohela 's accounting dept is denying them based on the type of forbearance that they put us in. She said she is seeing SEVERAL of them. This is criminal. I ill also attach a letter I received from Mohela dated XX/XX/XXXX that states the account was in interest free forbearance on XX/XX/XXXX ( the date of the injunction ). 
To recap, the only interest that should be on my account is interest accrued between my last payment of XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX. They have {$1700.00} overage on one loan and {$99.00} on the other. This is a total of {$1800.00} that needs to be removed. I need this removed before XX/XX/XXXX because XXXX cant refinance to a lower rate. Refinancing would entail paying off the loans completely and means Mohela gets {$1800.00} of my money incorrectly. 
FSA confirms that all SAVE loans have been interest free since XX/XX/XXXX of last year. It even says this on Mohela 's website. Yet they're now concocting this nonsense that they put me in a processing forbearance for 60 days and the interest accrued during that time is valid. That is CRIMINAL. Please intervene and get them to fix this. 

Regarding the complaint I mentioned earlier, that I filed against Mohela on the Federal Student Aid website. I filed one of these cases last year. The entire basis of the complaint is that Mohela refuses to service my loan properly. My case sat in review with the Federal Student Aid " ombudsman '' department for months before the final decision came down. The final decision was one sentence long : " we are forwarding your issue to Mohela for review ''. Of course, I never heard from Mohela, because Mohela isn't helping me, which is the very reason for the complaint. To wait 3 months for a review, only for the review to put me back at square one was a colossal waste of everyone 's time. I expected them to ACTUALLY HELP ME with Mohela. All they did was forward this to Mohela expecting them to fix this, which of course they won't. This needs to be addressed at the federal level. What Mohela is doing is criminal and they are doing it to several people, not just me.

Company response to consumer: Untimely response