Consumer complaint received 2025-06-03 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: IN

Complaint narrative:
I was an XXXX member from XXXX and received two XXXX XXXX awards, totaling more than {$10000.00}. I planned on using that money to pay off my XXXX  loans, and began to do so in XXXX. I made no payments during the COVID-19 pandemic from XXXX, but my expiration date for my awards was coming soon and I wanted to use them before they expired. The expiration date for my awards was XX/XX/XXXX. I put in the request to have the remainder of my awards, {$9900.00}, sent to Mohela as a payment on XX/XX/XXXX. 

This was the first time I was asking for a payment to be sent to Mohela as my previous loan server was XXXX, and I had been able to send them payments from my education award without incident ( except that it took about 6-8 weeks for the payments to show that they had gone through ). I checked on Mohela regularly to see if the payment had been applied, but saw nothing. I called Mohela, and they said they'd received nothing on their end and to check with XXXX. 

Knowing that the payments sometimes took awhile, I reached back out to XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX and they said that they had not been contacted regarding the voucher, and thus no payment was sent to Mohela. They also said that since my payment request was not processed until XX/XX/XXXX and my award technically expired on XX/XX/XXXX ( again, I submitted my request before this deadline, on XX/XX/XXXX ) they were unable to send a payment directly like they otherwise would, and had to send this voucher which Mohela was then supposed to accept and reach back out to XXXX to facilitate the payment. XXXX said I needed to get in touch with Mohela again and get the name/contact information for a person there or at least an accurate address to send the voucher. 

I called Mohela at the beginning of XX/XX/XXXX and asked for the name and contact information of someone working there that I could pass on to XXXX. They said there was no one. But they did give me a different address for the voucher to be sent to. I immediately reached out to XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX, and they sent the voucher to the new address on XX/XX/XXXX. 

What has followed since then is call after call to Mohela, with them continually telling me to wait and call back. I called in XX/XX/XXXX and was told there wasn't a record of the voucher being processed yet, so call back in 6-8 weeks. I called on XX/XX/XXXX and was told the same thing. I called on XX/XX/XXXX and was told that because Mohela was transitioning to a new platform with Department of Ed loans that I would need to give them an additional 2 months. I called again on XX/XX/XXXX, and they said that they would request a payment trace for me, and that it would likely take 6-8 weeks, but they were pretty sure that would resolve it. My online account portal wasn't fully accessible until XX/XX/XXXX, and once it was, all my messages that had been on my portal were deleted and my account history and record of issue was gone. 

I waited until XX/XX/XXXX to try again and see if things were finally settled and if there was a record of the payment trace and was told that while there was a record of the payment trace, there wasn't a record of the result. Mohela told me it would be escalated to a supervisor, and I should be notified in two weeks. I wasn't. 

I called on XX/XX/XXXX and was told that the payment trace had turned up nothing, and I was sent to a supervisor. The supervisor told me they would follow up in the next 4-5 business days. Again, nothing. 

Finally, on XX/XX/XXXX, I again called Mohela and they told me that since the payment wasn't ever processed and no voucher was found, I needed to upload documents showing that XXXX had sent the voucher, and they would try to resolve it. I uploaded the document I had from my XXXX account and also reached out to XXXX via email. XXXX responded a couple of days later that I needed to call in to have that question answered. On XX/XX/XXXX, the rep at XXXX said all their systems were down and asked me to called back in XXXX weeks. I called back on XX/XX/XXXX and was told that since my account was closed by XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX and they sent the voucher ( which they then told me was only good for 90 days ), there was nothing more they could do for me. I asked to speak to a supervisor or what I could do now to appeal to someone about having my education award sent to Mohela and was told that they would put in a request, but they were unwilling to provide any other information. 

So, I have {$9900.00} in award money that I submitted a payment request for 10 days before the deadline ( and by the way, nowhere does it say on any XXXX site/instructions that you must submit a payment request X number of days before an award expiration for the amount to be paid directly and not have to deal with this voucher nonsense ), and now XXXX won't send any other vouchers and Mohela either threw out the voucher or ignored it and then strung me along for almost a year and a half before telling me it was lost/gone. I have tried and tried to get to the bottom of this, but I am at the end of my rope and out of options.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation