Consumer complaint received 2025-02-20 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: IA

Complaint narrative:
Mohela customer service has made it nearly impossible to correct issues with my parent plus loans. 

-I hired a 3rd party company to manage my parent loans and 3 kids student loans as the rules and requirements became too complex for a non-expert.

-proper paperwork was filled out to allow them to act as my surrogate for the loans.

-paperwork was submitted and payments were supposed to start early last year.

-Mohela calculation was wrong due to me retiring in that time. We estimate an approximate {$400.00} per month error. Appropriate paperwork was filled out.

-Notified by Mohela of a forbearance being put into place -On XX/XX/year> I was notified by Mohela that my forbearance would end in 45 days. Still new estimate on completion of my re-calculation. 

-A new forbearance was requested for XXXX through XX/XX/year> as it is only allowed for two months at a time. ( Even though I believe it should have been automatic since I was still waiting for their delay ) -On XX/XX/year> I was informed that my payment for XXXX was overdue. Although I had submitted a longer term forbearance, I was told it would take 90 days to process and I would have to call directly to Mohela to have a 2 month forbearance go into effect immediately and not be late in payments. 

-myself and the third party company spent hours waiting online to speak with a Mohela representative. Once the third party got through, they then called me to be on the line as required by Mohela. We did the same thing for XXXX and XXXX. 

-Received a message that my next payment was due on XX/XX/XXXX. We contacted Mohela on XX/XX/XXXX. There was a multi-hour wait to speak to a representative. Once we did speak to a representative, we were told that we were currently under a forbearance through the remainder of XX/XX/XXXX and I would have to contact them the next day to request another forbearance. We waited another few hours and talked with a person who then forwarded us to another part of Mohela with another multi-hour wait. 

-Two weeks ago, I received another late payment notice because the 60 day forbearance had expired. Another longer term forbearance was submitted with the proper forms to Mohela. The response back was that it will take 90 days to process. That would put me nearly 5 payments behind. ( Still no progress on the relcalculation submitted nearly a year ago. 

-Third party is now not allowed to call them, so I have to call and wait on the line for the phone forbearance. Contacted them on XXXX. Was told by recording that there would be a 2 hour wait. Waited on the line for 3 hours and 33 minutes and someone answered and confirmed my information for billing purposes and told me I was late on my payment. I explained what I needed and she understood and transferred me to another Mohela department. The recording said it would be at least another 3 hour wait time on hold. At that point I could be on the phone for another 3 hours. I then called today ( XXXX ) just before XXXX and was told it would be a 2 hour wait. I chose the callback option which was not offered the day before. After selecting that option a recording said the wait time was 2 hours. It is now 6 hours later with no call. Once they do call, I will have to repeat being transferred and be on hold for multiple hours again. 

-A second IDR recalculation request was made in XXXX for the recalculation. 

-It currently shows that I owe {$16000.00} more than I did when this all started because of compounding interest that supposedly is going to be corrected at some point. 

While I understand the changes that are taking place. All of the recording messages from Mohela say they are a dept collector. A situation has been created that makes it impossible to stay above water with this thing and not be delinquent, even though they are a contractor with the government to manage these loans. Not only do I think their actual rules are not being followed, I feel there is willful delay tactics and potential fraud occurring with Mohela and these loans. 

In addition to filing complaints with multiple organizations, I have also contacted my Senators and Representatives with this same information as I believe it is either intentional or extremely poor management by Mohela and I am the ultimate recipient of those failures. Not only have I kept all correspondences on this matter, but the 3rd party I hired has also saved their documents.

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