Consumer complaint received 2025-01-14 00:00:00
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: Servicer under contract with Federal Student Aid
State: OH

Complaint narrative:
We have received conflicting and confusing information from the Department of Education on the process for discharging our student loans and the current status of that process. 

We consolidated our student loans with the Department of Education in XX/XX/XXXX. Because that consolidation happened before XX/XX/XXXX, our loans were placed into a process called the One-Time Income-Driven Repayment ( IDR ) Payment Count Adjustment that looked at our past payments to get a count of how many payments qualified towards an income driven repayment process. On the StudentAid.gov website, it was stated that is the IDR Recount showed qualified payments of XXXX for undergraduate loans and XXXX for graduate loans, that the loans would automatically be discharged regardless of what our current repayment plan was. To quote from StudentAid.gov 's website ( https : //studentaid.gov/idr/ ) : " Can I check online to see if my loans are impacted by the one-time IDR payment count adjustment? The first group of eligible borrowers were informed by ED on XX/XX/XXXX, that they have loans that qualified for forgiveness. No further action is required from these borrowers to get this forgiveness. ED will continue to identify and notify borrowers wo reach the necessary forgiveness threshold of XXXX or 300 months ' worth of qualifying payments, depending on the repayment plan and type of loan. '' Also, from the studentaid.gov website ( https : //studentaid.gov/announcements-events/idr-account-adjustment ) : " Any borrowers with loans that have accumulated eligible time in repayment of at least XXXX or 25 years will see automatic forgiveness, even if they are not currently on an IDR plan. '' On XX/XX/XXXX I called the StudentAid.gov support line, and was told by an agent that the process concluded for my loans on XX/XX/XXXX. I have XXXX loans, XXXX # XXXX and # XXXX, and that both exceeded the forgiveness threshold as both had qualifying payments, at that time, of XXXX. I was also told that I needed to take no further action for that discharge to take place. I have continued to make payments on both loans while I have awaited the loan discharge from the Department of Education. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, the StudentAid.gov dashboard for my loans updated. The status of the loans had not changed, but there was a link to inquire about Income Driven Repayment. Following that link for my account showed XXXX options for IDR. For a type of loan called an Income-Based Repayment, the graphic showed that I had XXXX qualifying payments, and that on on this plan my loans would be forgiven in XX/XX/XXXX, the current month. 

This seemed confusing as previous and current information on the StudentAid.gov website indicated that the loans should be forgiven without having to do anything further. I called and spoke to an agent for StudentAid.gov who informed me that contrary to what was stated on the website, I did indeed need to sign up for an IBR plan to qualify for forgiveness and to have the qualifying payments of XXXX apply. That agent transferred me to the department charged with signing people up for IBR plans, and that agent also confirmed that, contrary to what is on the StudentAid.gov website as posted above, that a person does indeed have to be signed up for an IBR plan for those qualifying payments to be counted and the loan discharged.

As a precaution, despite the confusing information, I have filled out the application for an Income-Driven Repayment plan, or Income Based Repayment plan, specifically the ICR or Income Contingent Repayment plan, as that one is not currently been put on hold due to pending litigation. 

I would like the Department of Education to follow through on their stated promise to discharge my student loan as it exceeds the minimums of XXXX and/or XXXX qualifying payments, as noted on their website and with my qualifying payments noted as part of my accounts information on qualifying for an IDR plan.

Company response to consumer: Untimely response