Consumer complaint received 2024-12-04 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: NY

Complaint narrative:
I am a public servant in New York, having been employed since XX/XX/XXXX. In XX/XX/XXXX, I reached my XXXX month of qualifying employment with the Public Service Loan Forgiveness ( PSLF ) program. However, because I am enrolled in the SAVE payment plan, I am now unable to receive loan discharge due to pending litigation, remaining stuck at XXXX qualifying payments. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, per the Department of Education 's guidance, I submitted a manual application to Mohela to transfer from SAVE to the XXXXBR ( income-based repayment ) plan. There is no online record of this submission. I again submitted an IBR application electronically via Federal Student Aid ( FSA ) on XX/XX/XXXX. The Department of Education has blocked the processing of these applications. However, this appears to be changing as recently Mohela has sent email correspondences to people, which state We received your application for IBR, detailing that these borrowers on SAVE will now be placed on a 60-day processing forbearance that will count for PSLF. 

To date, people are reporting that they have received these emails the week of XX/XX/XXXX XXXX, having submitted IBR applications to switch out of XXXX at the end of XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, among other dates as indicated at the links below. 

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX I called Mohela at XXXX XXXX to inquire about the status of my IBR application and to request being placed on an IBR-related 60-day processing forbearance , which counts towards PSLF. During my hold Mohela 's prompt clearly states : " If you have submitted an income-driven repayment IDR application that has not yet been processed, we are in the process of placing a forbearance on your account at the direction of Federal Student Aid. We will send you additional information in the coming weeks. '' When I was transferred to an " advanced agent '' they stated that I was placed in the IBR-related 60-day processing forbearance, which would count towards PSLF on Wednesday, XX/XX/XXXX, backdated for XX/XX/XXXX, and that I should receive an email right away. When I did not receive the email Friday or Monday as suggested, I called Mohela on Tuesday, XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX XXXX. After a nearly XXXX hour wait, I was transferred from the first rep to an advanced agent to the Resolutions Department. During this call, I was told that the prior information given to me was not accurate. The representative also stated that no one on SAVE had received such emails, allowing them to transfer to qualifying IBR processing forbearances, and that they are still being blocked by ED from moving borrowers from the SAVE forbearance into other qualifying plans.

This information is contrary to Mohela 's own automated recording, in addition to the evidence above, which shows that they appear to be randomly or selectively moving some SAVE borrowers into 60-day PSLF qualifying processing forbearances.

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