Consumer complaint received 2026-04-23 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: WI

Complaint narrative:
I am writing to formally file a complaint regarding the mishandling of my student loan account and the negative impact it has had on my Public Service Loan Forgiveness ( PSLF ) payment count. I was in repayment during XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX and made my required $ 300 monthly payments on time. Prior to taking a course in XXXX ( which lasted approximately six weeks ), I contacted Mohela office to explicitly request that my loans remain in repayment status and not be placed into deferment. Despite this request, I received notice in XX/XX/XXXX that my loans had been placed into deferment. I immediately contacted Mohela to correct this error and requested to be returned to repayment status. During that call, I was advised not to make a payment in XXXX, which directly disrupted my PSLF qualifying payment progress. Although my account was returned to repayment in XXXX, my payment schedule was delayed by an additional two months. I again contacted Mohela office to address this issue, as I wanted to ensure my payments continued to count toward PSLF without interruption. In XX/XX/XXXX, I discovered that my XXXX and XXXX paymentspreviously counted as qualifyinghad been retroactively reclassified as deferment and removed from my PSLF count. This change was made months after the fact and without notification. Since XXXX, I have contacted Mohela multiple times and several escalation requests were submitted to resolve this issue. However, as of XX/XX/XXXX, I was informed that all prior escalation requests had been canceled and they did not notify me once. I feel as if I was forced to make payment under false pretense, not only did they retroactively unqualify my payments, they refuse to pay my money back as they delayed me in escalations and now say its past 60 days though they have delayed in communication or none at all even when requested. I am suppose to be done with my payments but due to the mishandling of mohela and different steps instructed by multi reps, I am now still paying and over paying when I should be done. I feel they are taking advantage of borrowers and taking complaints and ignoring them. After talking today, I logged in and now see a letter saying they have closed my request. I just looked last week and that attachment was not there. They are saying you were in school so we have the right to put you in deferement though previously you were in repayment and they are saying we have the right to keep your money too. This seems so unethical. If you change my status than I should be able to get my money back. This situation is deeply concerning for several reasons : I made payments on time while in repayment status, and failure to do so would have negatively impacted my credit. I explicitly requested not to be placed into deferment. Changes to my account were made retroactively and they refuse to pay me back my money. My PSLF qualifying payment count has been incorrectly reduced due to servicing errors. I was denied a refund based on a 60-day policy, despite the delay being caused by Mohela organizations actions and delayed processing. I maintained consistent communication and active dispute requests, which were ultimately canceled without resolution

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation