Consumer complaint received 2025-03-16 00:00:00
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: MOHELA
State: IN

Complaint narrative:
NOTE* There have been more than one issue with dealing with this company but I could only choose one in the previous section.

Issue : I applied for the IDR plan shortly after graduating while still being in the grace period. Because of the court cases, my application was never processed. I was then placed in forbearance ( which was supposed to continue until the court cases were decided per United States Department of Education and Mohela themselves have this stated on their website, in emails and in a recording over the phone when you call customer service ). I was randomly taken off of forbearance and put into repayment without any explanation as to why. I then called Mohela and waited on hold for over 4 hours until I was connected to a representative that supposedly could help me. I explained the situation and was told that many people were taken out of the forbearance by mistake ( including myself ) and that they are unable to keep up with manually placing people in forbearance ; she confirmed my IDR application status and confirmed that I should still be in forbearance. She told me she was going to remove my past due date because obviously nothing should have been due and told me that she would place me in an administrative forbearance. I then told her that I noticed that while I was in forbearance previously, interest had been added to my balance incorrectly, Mohela stated in my email alerting me I was in forbearance that I do not need to make payments and that no interest will accrue because while in forbearance my interest rate will be set to 0 %. She stated that Mohela will remove any interest that has been accrued incorrectly once the court case has been decided and payments actually start again. She stated in would take XXXX hours to see the past due removed and the forbearance started again. She confirmed that the forbearance she would place would last until at least XX/XX/year> and that I should check back then to make sure this mistake didn't happen again. This call was on XX/XX/year> and the only thing that has been done was the past due date of XX/XX/year> removed. I am now in the exact same situation with a past due date of XX/XX/year> except this time I can't get ahold of anyone to " fix it ''. Over the past month, I have called over 10 times, sat on hold for an accumulative 17+ hours and sent 4 online emails from their website. I have gotten a reply once and that reply included incorrect information, instructions that are not physically possible and ignored almost everything I said in the email I sent. At this point I do not know what to do and can not afford to have an incorrect delinquency but I am obviously not willing to pay an amount that accrued unlawful and incorrect interest, does not reflect correct information and that I just shouldn't have to pay due to the fact that it should be in forbearance and therefore not due. I have made screenshots/copies of all correspondences proving the information I have and am arguing is correct, I took notes on the call in which I was connected to a customer service member and have attempted to get this issue fixed an ample amount of times. Because of this issue, I had a XXXX XXXX at work and had to go home, I have used countless work hours to attempt to contact Mohela during their business hours ( the last call I sat on hold for over XXXX hours ) and every contact attempt on my end has resulted in no solutions ( including email where I laid out all the information and was met with a robotic response that did not address anything I said ). I have seen countless posts online from others who are experiencing either the same or very similar issues along with posts from supposed ex-employees who state that Mohela is using a specific tactic in which they use long wait times and no responses so that people give up and just pay whatever is presented as their balance for fear of becoming delinquent, even when it is not correct. I do not know what to do at this point, please help me.

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