Consumer complaint received 2025-08-27 00:00:00
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: EdFinancial Services
State: VA

Complaint narrative:
For context, I am a XXXX service member participating in the Student Loan Repayment Plan program and have been receiving payments from the XXXX XXXX over the past few years, including a payment made in Fall XXXX while on the XXXX plan. That fall XXXX payment was applied to my loans, amounting to {$5000.00}, when they were serviced by XXXX. In XX/XX/XXXX, a federal court injunction temporarily halted the implementation of the XXXX plan, which resulted in my loans entering forbearance. Several months ago, I was informed by EdFinancial, my new loan servicer, that although my loans were in forbearance, I would not receive credit toward XXXX. I was advised that switching to an XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  plan would allow my XXXX  payments to continue and count toward XXXX. Following this advice, I changed my repayment plan and requested that the {$5000.00} payment from the Fall XXXX be applied as an advanced payment or placed in a paid-ahead status since I was resuming payments and was no longer in forbearance. This payment should have already been carried over from XXXX to EdFinancial as a paid-ahead amount, but it had not been reflected in my account. Over the past few months, I've spoken dozens of times with various customer service representatives through the XXXX XXXX number on the EdFinancial website, and each assured me that the payment would be applied and reflected as paid ahead. However, despite numerous follow-ups, including a request to submit proof of the {$5000.00} payment to XXXX, I have received conflicting information about when this would be resolved. The agent I spoke with several weeks ago even cancelled my auto pay and told me to monitor my account for the changes as it would be reflected soon. Today, after not seeing any updates or hearing back, I contacted customer service again, and I was told that a request had been made to the Department of Education to process the funding, and that it should be reflected soon. Yet just an hour later, I was called by a different representative who said the payment would not be placed in a paid-ahead status due to my plan switch -- despite it being on the same loan and no other changes occurring. He could not understand why the previous representative told me what she did as it did not make sense. This type of communication has been ongoing for MONTHS. It had been incredibly frustrating dealing with EdFinancial and being given inconsistent and, at times, incorrect information over the past several months. These ongoing issues have caused me to unnecessarily change repayment plans and wasted significant time gathering documentation, only to be repeatedly told different things. Because my autopay was cancelled by a representative I also had to scramble to make a payment that I wouldn't have known about if I didn't call back for the hundreth time. As a loan servicer, this is completely unacceptable and unprofessional. I sincerely hope EdFinancial will do the right thing in resolving this matter promptly.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation