Consumer complaint received 2025-03-17 00:00:00
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: MOHELA
State: OH

Complaint narrative:
I went to XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX beginning in XXXX at XXXX XXXX for my XXXX XXXX. This school was recently apart of a class action lawsuit XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX. I am in the process of attempting to apply for borrowers defense as I did not know about the lawsuit until after the deadline for submission was passed. I XXXX  in XXXX and went straight to work as an XXXX during XXXX. My student loans were placed in a grace period and then the XXXX XXXX put them in forbearance due to the pandemic. I began my XXXX degree in XXXX as it was required by my employer to obtain within 5 years. Due to being in school and the continued deferment from the pandemic my student loans remained at a XXXX $ payment. In XXXX I attempted to apply for a mortgage and was told it was a good idea to consolidate my loans and place them in an IDR plan even if they were still in forbearance so the mortgage company could see what my payment would be. After doing this, I was informed my payment would be XXXXXXXX XXXX  a month. This was confirmed on a recorded line with my lender and Navient. I then applied for PSFL as I work for a non profit as an XXXX. Because of this my loans were transferred to MOHELA. My nightmare beings here. I ended up not buying that house due to the state of the economy. In XXXX, I tried to apply for another mortgage and was told there was XXXX $ worth of student loan debt being reported on my credit making my XXXX  extremely high. This is because when navient became my servicer they bought the student loan debt from aidvantage due to my consolidation and even after a year it was NEVER reported to the credit bureau that aidvantage was paid off, my new debt reflecting twice the debt, one from each loan servicer. I was denied a mortgage loan because I had to file with the credit bureau to have it fixed, a process which took over 6 months. I couldnt even get documentation for the credit bureau from aidvantage because my account was closed and transferred to navient. Another year went by and I was informed my loans were being transferred to MOHELA. Even after the transfer was complete I still never received any information from them about my IDR plan, or my payment resumption date. I finished my XXXX degree on XX/XX/XXXX. Two weeks prior, on XX/XX/XXXX, I received an email from MOHELA, the first communication since my servicer changed, stating my payments would resume in XXXX and they would be XXXX $ a month for 3 months then they would be XXXX $ a month for 122 months. No explanation. I assumed this was due to my income recertification being due, but when I did my originally application I agreeded to having my income pulled from IRS for recertification. They would not allow me to consolidate my XXXX loans stating I was still in school, when in fact my employer was paying for my education. On XX/XX/XXXX I revived another email ( after being unable to get ahold of anyone via phone with XXXX hour wait times ) that my repayment plan request was approved. One that I never actually submitted. This new payment plan states that now my payments will still resume XX/XX/XXXX but will be XXXX $ a month. So not only did they only give my one months notice my payments were resuming, literally weeks after being out of school ( not the 6 month grace period they should have ) they change my payment twice in less than two weeks, avoiding all points of contact. No explanation as to why these changes were made. Now if I can not come up with the monthly money, which even XXXX $ is higher than I was originally supposed to be laying, it is only XXXX for 3 months and then goes to almost XXXX XXXX which makes XXXX sense if my income is verified for the entire year. This is a reflection of the recent reports that have come out about MOHELA purposely making it difficult for consumers to even contact them all surrounding a loan from a school that was proven to have taken part in predatory loan practices placed in an administrative forbearance by the US government in which consumers are now being punished for during an economic collapse.

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