Consumer complaint received 2025-01-09 00:00:00
Product: Debt collection — Federal student loan debt
Issue: Attempts to collect debt not owed — Debt was paid
Company: EdFinancial Services
State: CA

Complaint narrative:
I am following up on an earlier complaint, XXXX, against XXXX, my original student loan server, and XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, in response to a complaint I filed with the Better Business Bureau, XXXX sent me an email stating, " We are unable to locate a student loan account with the information you gave us '' and that they no longer have records of my loan. This, among the practices you detailed in your settlement with XXXX, means that I can not trust any loan payment amounts that were then transferred to XXXX, and now to EdFinancial. Because of XXXX 's fraudulent practices, and now their disappearance of all of my prior account records, I am requesting immediate student loan forgiveness. 

As outlined in this article in XX/XX/XXXX by the CFPB, XXXX engaged in criminal business practices, of which I have been a victim. CFPB director XXXX XXXX said, To keep costs low, XXXX encouraged its employees to push borrowers into forbearance, a much quicker and cheaper option for the company. This approach allowed XXXX to process more calls in less time, boosting their bottom line. However, it came at a severe cost to borrowers, whose balances swelled with accrued and capitalized interest and who were denied the opportunity to enroll in repayment plans that could have significantly lowered their monthly payments and set them on a path to loan cancellation. This is exactly what happened to me. After finishing my XXXX  in XXXX, and finding myself in a higher education job market that was severely contracted after the XXXX recession and paying adjunct professors wages at an average of $ XXXX a year, I struggled to get XXXX to agree to an income-based repayment plan that wasnt over 30 % of my income. Because I am also housing cost-burdened by living in the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX was truly impossible to pay what their payment plans offered. They were very generous, I thought at the time, to offer me deferment. I now realize, as I apply and fail to get loan forgiveness because I havent made XXXX payments, that I was a victim of these fraudulent practices. 

When XXXX became my new provider, the situation was exactly the same, and now this has become my problem with EdFinancial. XXXX pushed me into deferment, they failed to offer an income-based repayment plan that was feasible in any way, and my interest has now accrued to XXXX XXXX where I owe {$260000.00} for my XXXX. In XXXX, I owed what seemed like a terrifying and astronomical sum of {$110000.00}. Because of XXXX and XXXX deliberate misrepresentation and deception, I find myself in a terrible and untenable situation. Finally, I applied for XXXX income-based repayment plan. According to their website, repayment amounts can be no more than 30 % of your income. On XX/XX/XXXX, they denied my request to pay {$150.00} a month and replied with an amount that was over 40 % of my monthly income. Because I no longer exist in XXXX records, and there is no record on XXXX of their denial of my income-based request form, EdFinancial is using faulty and fraudulent practices as the basis to demand repayment of my debt.

While EdFinancial was not the original perpetrator of these practices, they have inherited the unethical practices of XXXX and XXXX, and must discharge my loans. Finally, on XX/XX/XXXX, I received a notification from EdFinancial that I had a new message. Upon opening, each loan was listed as paid and the balance for each, and the total, was {$0.00}. I believed that my loans had been discharged. This week, I received another message showing my loans at $ XXXX again. I'm not sure why this is the case, but it was an unnecessarily cruel step in this whole terrible process. Considering that the incoming administration will work to eliminate CFPB, this is my only chance to receive justice for the predatory practices of my student loan providers. I request full loan discharge from EdFinancial as my case clearly shows how I've been victimized by predatory lending. 

Thank you for your attention.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation