Consumer complaint received 2025-01-08 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: VA

Complaint narrative:
For the past 6 months, since the court injunction that blocked certain aspects of the XXXX plan, XXXX and XXXX have been misleading student loan borrowers about the state of their accounts and their options for remedy. I understand that the transition of XXXX administration from XXXX to XXXX caused a backlog, but it is not acceptable for a company that controls such an important part of their customers to be so poorly managed. Misleading and confusing letters and website information, tech glitches, and long wait times for customer service are the hallmark not just of XXXX ( as is already well documented ), but also XXXX. I have two issues that have remained unresolved for months. 

ISSUE XXXX : XXXX XXXX & XXXX My payment date is the XXXX of the month. On XX/XX/XXXX, I made a full payment ( Exhibit A ). I had been told that a forbearance was coming because of XXXX platform transition and that it would count toward XXXX, but it never showed in my account and my account had already transitioned by my due date, XX/XX/XXXX ( Exhibit B ). 

In XXXX I submitted an Employment Certification Form, and at that time my payment count was updated on the XXXX website. However, the month of XXXX was not included. The list of months included XXXX ( qualifying ), XXXX ( ineligible ), and XXXX ( ineligible ). 

In XXXX, after XXXX updated the system, XXXX appeared in the list, but it was marked ineligible due to a forbearance on my due date. I called XXXX to question this, and I was told to file a reconsideration request. I did so on XX/XX/XXXX ( Exhibit C ). 

It is worth noting that hundreds of people in the XXXX XXXX support group and XXXX subreddits have also experienced this problem. As of XX/XX/XXXX, I have not gotten a response to my reconsideration request. 

ISSUE 2 : Legality of the XXXX XXXX XXXX by Dept. of Ed. 
I have been told by XXXX that the XXXX has told them to pause processing the XXXX applications of borrowers currently on the XXXX plan. IBRs calculation has never been part of the injunction, and stalling my XXXX application interferes with my statutorily delegated ability to switch my repayment plans. Additionally, there has been no official transparency on the matter. None of this has been communicated to borrowers and in fact numerous misleading statements can be currently found on various XXXX websites. Here is my situation. 

When I and all other borrowers on the XXXX plan were forced into forbearance because of the court injunction, XXXX said there were XXXX remedies for people in PSLF ( Exhibit D, screenshot of XXXX website. ) Either borrowers could buy back the months when they hit 120 months of qualifying employment, or they could enroll in a different repayment plan. I decided to enroll in a new repayment plan. I had been on XXXX for almost all of my student loan repayment, and unfortunately I moved to the XXXX plan in XX/XX/XXXX to try and keep my costs down for my final year of repayment. 

XXXX reinforced this notion about applying for a new XXXX plan in a letter they sent on XX/XX/XXXX ( Exhibit E ). 

When the online IDR application opened again in XX/XX/XXXX, I immediately applied for XXXX ( Exhibit F ). At no point was I advised that processing was paused, which should have been a standard response to submitting an application. The solutions to the XXXX forbearance for XXXX borrowers still suggested switching plans. 

According to the XXXX website ( Exhibit D again ), If servicers need time to process a borrowers IDR application, servicers will move the borrower into a processing forbearance for up to 60 days. Interest accrues during this short-term processing forbearance, and time in the processing forbearance is eligible for XXXX  and XXXX forgiveness. This was never done in my case, and in fact when I contacted XXXX, several levels of employees were unable to understand this idea, despite waiting XXXX hours per call to be escalated. This should have happened in XXXX, giving me 2 at least 2 additional months of XXXXeligible payments. 

The insult added to all of this injury is that wait times with XXXX are typically over XXXX hours, questions are met with canned responses that dont make sense and send borrowers into illogical loops, and no one is able to answer anything ( Exhibits H.1, H.3 ).

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