Consumer complaint received 2023-12-28 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: Nelnet, Inc.
State: NC

Complaint narrative:
My student loan servicer is Nelnet. As soon as the option was available, I enrolled in the SAVE plan (Saving on a Valuable Education) via the Federal Aid website. It was then processed and estimated a monthly payment of ~XXXXXXXX. Based on what I have seen that payment should drop to around half in XXXX XXXX  when the other provisions of SAVE kick in and discretionary income paid drops from 10% to 5%. This is just stuff I have heard. I have called Nelnet to speak with representatives before to verify this information (because $XXXX  a month is really not affordable for me, but I was going to hold out and make those payments until XXXX when they drop to half), and some people are unsure or say, "Yeah, sure those payments will drop," but you can tell they don't actually know. Anyway, I was placed on "SAVE," and it said so in my Nelnet portal on the home page. I realized that I might have submitted the wrong XXXX in my application, so I resubmitted a SAVE application with Nelnet, which asked me to verify my income either through their website or I could import my IRS tax information into studentaid.gov and then have them submit that information to Nelnet- I chose the latter. Since then, sometime in XXXX, my status was switched from "SAVE" to "IDR Proc Admin" in my Nelnet account. I have called several times to check on the status, and I have also made 3 payments since then of what I can afford. I signed in today, and it still says it is processing my application, but now, on my Nelnet homepage, it says my repayment plan is the "Standard Repayment Plan," and it estimates my monthly payment to be about $XXXX. I call today on XXXX to ask several questions - one to ask why it says Standard Repayment in the repayment section because I applied for SAVE and wanted to see why it says Standard? It has said IDR Proc Admin there. The representative tells me that it's just because that application is still processing and she sees that. I was trying to explain that I was worried that they were switching it to say "Standard" so they could get out of forgiving the interest that has accumulated since I was placed in an administrative forbearance, because my account has said "IDR Proc Admin" until this point and on XXXX XXXX XXXX the department of education released a statement that includes "In certain circumstances where potential servicer errors may harm a borrowers progress toward loan forgiveness, the Department has directed servicers to count those periods in administrative forbearance toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness and income-driven repayment forgiveness and adjust accrued interest to XXXX (source: XXXXXXXX  ). From a consumer standpoint, the language is very specific and says those accounts put in administrative forbearance will have accounts adjusted to account for this interim accrued interest, so to me, it appears almost as if Nelnet is saying I am in "Standard" repayment to get out of that? Maybe not, I just wanted to check but the representative doesn't even know how to reply. I said "Well they say they are only going to waive interest that says IDR plan, and mine did say IDR plan until a few days ago, so I'm checking to make sure that they will still uphold waiving my interest since they are the ones choosing to label my account as "Standard" even though it has been IDR proc admin" (which should count as an IDR plan that gets the administrative forbearance interest waived) for a few months. Before that it was listed as a processed "SAVE repayment plan" (Which is also an IDR plan that should get the administrative forbearance interest waived). She was unsure. I then said "okay, well I also see an accountment on my account homepage that says I can have my payments made refunded to me during this time and I would like to do that."  The representative said I would have to "talk to my bank" which doesn't even make any sense. (For reference the statement on my loan homepage says "Recent Notification of Administrative Forbearance

If you were recently notified that your student loan account was placed into an administrative forbearance for the months of XXXX  through XXXX XXXX, and you would like to have any payment(s) you made during these months refunded to you, you have 90 calendar days from the date shown on your notification to contact us to request a refund."). 

I said "Oh well I am reading the announcement that it's giving me on my Nelnet homepage and it says to contact Nelnet if I want the payments refunded." She said, "Well, I only see one payment". I told her I had made 3 payments in XXXX  and can see them in my payment activity. She then said she saw them (?) and put me on hold to contact a supervisor to get the payments refunded. I talked to the supervisor and explained the whole story. He said my original SAVE application was processed, but when I resubmitted in XXXX  that is when I was placed in an administrative forbearance and that now it is moving up in the processing queue but he can get my payments refunded I have made in XXXX  and that yes the SAVE Plan was processing. We then continue talking and he reaches out to another person to talk about my situation and getting payments refunded. When he comes back he says that basically it doesn't make sense to do the SAVE for me because of my income and that the monthly payment is high and that actually the lowest monthly payment is an ICR plan. I explained that I know ICR might be cheaper now but I know it is the most expensive over time and that yes my payments for SAVE were high but that I had read in XXXX XXXX when the rest of the provisions for SAVE kicked in my monthly payment is supposed to basically be halved because the plan will ask you to pay what it considered 5% of your discretionary income instead of 10%. So even though my payment was going to be high now, I was just going to try my best to stick it out until XXXX XXXX  because then it would be around $XXXX  or whatever which is basically the same monthly amount they are projecting for me under both the Standard Payment Plan and the ICR plan, with the added benefit of costing less over time than ICR and it's also an IDR plan so if for some reason something changes with my situation, regardless my loan will be forgiven after 20 years if I have any outstanding amount (I don't plan to have to but you never know). ALSO, again, the announcement suggests that the months I spent in administrative forbearance while processing my SAVE plan would count towards the 20 years of payments (it is also in the same statement as the XXXX XXXX announcement about waiving accrued interest. See:  "In certain circumstances where a borrowers progress toward loan forgiveness may be harmed by potential servicer errors, the Department has directed servicers to count those periods in administrative forbearance toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness and income-driven repayment forgiveness and adjust accrued interest to XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX). He's like oh okay I see.

We then continue talking and then we are talking about my application and he mentions that I had selected an Income Contingent Repayment plan. This is where I got confused. I said "..No I didn't? I never selected an ICR plan. When I went on Nelnet both times to apply for SAVE it gave that as an option and I didn't select that." he said "Well they put you in that one because right now it's the cheapest option for you" and I said that doesn't make any sense.

I just thought maybe he didn't know what he was talking about because again, I have ran into lots of representatives not knowing what to tell me with all of these nuances... so I was like no I selected SAVE, and that doesn't make sense that they could just put me on an ICR plan when I didn't request to be on one? He then got a little upset/frustrated with me in tone (understandably because I am basically arguing at this point that he's wrong with whatever he must be looking at) but I told him even from my most recent statement published on XXXX it says under ALL of my loan groups XXXX XXXX XXXX) that my repayment plan is "SAVE." He said "That's because they JUST reprocessed your application, like today, so now I have to get you BACK on the SAVE plan, and I also will submit your refund for the payments you made in XXXX." 

I was worried maybe when he was discussing with the person he asked for assistance they just switched me to ICR since they saw it was the cheapest option and that Nelnet didn't actually do this but that he did. I'm not saying he did I was just concerned and this is why I kept questioning him on it. He basically says that they just put me on it today and now he has to get me back into SAVE and I'm like oh okay because I definitely don't want to be on an ICR plan and I am hoping that this back and forth as far as this goes will again further affect my account and make it complicated to where I don't get the accrued interest waived.


During the conversation, the supervisor admitted he did not even KNOW about the payment dropping in half for SAVE in XXXX  from 10% discretionary income to 5%, and I had to reference what I could find online explaining. The servicers I talked to months ago the last time I called for anything also did not know. 

The whole reason I want the 3 payments I made in XXXX  refunded anyway is because I want them to make sure they cancel all the accrued interest during the IDR Proc Admin hold including the interest I had already paid in those 3 payments (Nelnet Lists the Interest Paid on these payments as XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX respectively).

After being told that I would be put back on SAVE, later that day I logged into my account and it said SAVE as my plan and my monthly payment XXXX instead of StandardXXXX

Why is it I had to call for this to be done? Again, why was it switched from Idr Proc Admin to Standard anyway? Again they said it was just a part of the application processing but that doesnt make sense to me since it had said IDR Proc Admin for several months now why now would it have switched to that? The representative said its because they had put me in an ICR plan but if thats the case why didnt the account say ICR under the repayment planning section and why wasnt the amount due listed the amount that I wouldve owed had I been in ICR? Its fine with me if its just a visual error and that it really didnt affect my account, but again I dont want the change of it saying IDR Proc Admin to something else (Wheter that be Standard or how it now says SAVE) to affect what interest should be waived during the months of XXXX XXXX XXXX. Now that my account lists the correct plan, I still think interest should be waived until my due date, no? Because it wouldnt even say the right thing had I not called, so why would I call? It doesnt make sense to penalize with more interest just because I took initiative to straighten things out. Had I not called it would still be in process correct? Maybe it still is in process, but it just says the right thing now?

Every time you talk to someone, it feels like you know more than them, even though you feel like you know nothing. You're calling to get an understanding on how to best proceed since there have been so many announcements and a lack of clarification (ex, seeing the announcement I saw on the Department of Education website mentioning canceling IDR Proc Admin interest but it's not widely announced or easy to keep up with changes or understand because when you search for information often news articles or websites are referencing old or unrelated announcements/actual laws/legal jargon/groups of borrowers that don't apply to you). Nobody knows what is going on, and it's not their fault, but it makes the situation so complicated (see this complaint). It creates an environment where the student loan company can exploit the consumer either knowingly or even unknowingly and unable to keep up with what is supposed to be implemented. Who will even follow up with them to make sure they cancel this accrued interest caused by the servicer delays and being placed in an administrative forbearance? Are they really going to calculate the proper amount of interest to cancel? They should calculate from whenever I was placed in September on administrative forebearance to whenever I am taken out which I am not even taken out of it right now, according to my account my payment is due in XXXX. What if they don't acknowledge that they put me in the administrative forbearance? I don't even know whether I should make a payment right now or wait until my "due" date of XXXX  because I feel like the more payments I make until my due date the more it will confuse the backlogging of waiving the administrative forbearance interest, if my student loan company even does it at all.

Overall, I am concerned that my interest in IDR Proc Admin will not be waived if it is supposed to be. 

My balance has continued increasing (balance: XXXX XXXX XXXX). 

The accrued interest on my account has continued increasing (accrued interest listed on these dates: XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Again I made payments in XXXX  which if refunded should not increase the interest owed. I also don't want the switch that apparently happened (or happened according to service rep?) from SAVE to "ICR" while re-processing my SAVE plan to affect me because I have been on a SAVE plan OR Idr Proc Admin status since I originally applied for SAVE as soon as it came out.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation