Date Received: 2023-10-21
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Subissue: Problem with customer service
Consumer Complaint: I made payments on my loads during the COVID pause prior to them being transferred from XXXX to Mohela. I contacted Mohela to request a refund and this was processed and sent over to the treasury department on XX/XX/. It has been over the 90 business days that it typically takes to process these requests and I still have not received a refund and no way to track the status now that it has been sent to the DoT. My loans have since been forgiven.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
State: OH
Zip: 454XX
Submitted Via: Web
Date Sent: 2023-10-21
Company Response to Consumer: Closed with explanation
Timely Response: Yes
Consumer Disputed: N/A
Date Received: 2023-10-21
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Subissue: Trouble with how payments are being handled
Consumer Complaint: There are a few issues I am having with MOHELA, and calling them has created more problems where I have to call them again. 1 ) I consolidated my direct loans and applied for the SAVE plan at the same time, however, only my loans were consolidated and my repayment plan was not taken into account when it was transferred to MOHELA and it showed I had to pay way more than I would have if repayment was under SAVE plan 2 ) I called them and asked why and they did not give me information or change anything. Instead, they applied the SAVE plan again and told me they could put my consolidated loan in forbearance until the SAVE plan was applied. At this point, I already had two other loans of mine in the SAVE plan, so I was fine with this BUT they placed all my loans in forbearance and nothing that they have done reflects on the website. There is no proper communication of what took place in the call. 3 ) They processed my PSLF form in a way that says my employment ends in 5 days which does not make sense when I marked my employer as currently employed. I let them know that and they said I just would have to resubmit when that does not make sense and does not match up with my colleagues who also applied for PSLF.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
State: OH
Zip: 44106
Submitted Via: Web
Date Sent: 2023-10-21
Company Response to Consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief
Timely Response: Yes
Consumer Disputed: N/A
Date Received: 2023-10-21
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Subissue: Trouble with how payments are being handled
Consumer Complaint: In an effort to solve the issue described in my previous CFPB complaint, I gave MOHELA a call. After patiently waiting on hold for more than 2 hours, I asked customer service why my SAVE payment was so high. They did not know and told me they would recalculate my payment while I was put on administrative forbearance. Shortly after, I got a written notification from MOHELA that they needed 90 additional days to process my payment. This is unacceptable. They sure did send me my bill quickly.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
State: AL
Zip: 352XX
Submitted Via: Web
Date Sent: 2023-10-21
Company Response to Consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief
Timely Response: Yes
Consumer Disputed: N/A
Date Received: 2023-10-22
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Subissue: Problem with customer service
Consumer Complaint: My student loans with Mohela started again in XXXX. I am currently in XXXX and have paid 118 qualified payments. I only have 1 payment left for total forgiveness. I have tried to make that payment 3 times. Each time Mohela send the payment back with an error from my bank. I have no attempts by Mohela to withdraw from my account. I am now in default for 1 payment and I am not getting an answer from Mohela as to how to fix this.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
State: FL
Zip: 33404
Submitted Via: Web
Date Sent: 2023-10-22
Company Response to Consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief
Timely Response: Yes
Consumer Disputed: N/A
Date Received: 2023-10-20
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan
Subissue: Problem with your payment plan
Consumer Complaint: I applied for the SAVE program and was granted a reprieve from paying my loan for one year. However, all of the emails and advertising says that your payments will be {$0.00} and while they are, interest continues to accrue at my previous interest levels. So, if I don't pay anything I will rack up thousands of dollars in interest over the course of the year only digging myself further into a hole when I'm already in a hole as my acceptance to the SAVE program can attest. When I try to contact Mohela about the interest accrual, you can't actually talk to anyone. You can't email, the system will send you to FAQs pages and if you try to call them you'll be on hold for hours which just isn't feasible. They are not meeting their contractual obligations with the DOE and the SAVE program is preying upon the most vulnerable of borrowers setting them up for financial ruin by saying they don't have to pay anything when in fact they are accruing massive amounts of interest and will be in severe financial distress if they pay {$0.00} for the next year. When I attempted to pay my interest on XXXX Mohela put it towards principal, so I still accrued more interest which then gets added to my principal and I'm stuck in a never ending loop.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
State: FL
Zip: 322XX
Submitted Via: Web
Date Sent: 2023-10-20
Company Response to Consumer: Closed with explanation
Timely Response: Yes
Consumer Disputed: N/A
Date Received: 2023-10-20
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Subissue: Trouble with how payments are being handled
Consumer Complaint: I have been transferred to a new student loan servicer called MOHELA ( this is the fourth servicer I have been transferred to, many of the past services found guilty of malfeasance ). My last servicer had an option to make principal-only payments beyond the regular monthly payment by checking a box in one 's account. I have found that MOHELA has for some unexplained reason decided not to offer this option. Last week and spoke with a representative about making such payments, and they said I could either mail a check with instructions (? ) or make a payment online and tell a customer representative that the recent payment is to be made towards the principal only. After my regular monthly auto-debit payment went through on XX/XX/XXXX, I made payments to MOHELA totaling the principal amount, {$100000.00} on Friday XX/XX/XXXX. I called MOHELA on Monday XX/XX/XXXX and spoke with a trainee, who said I could not apply payments to the principal, which is wrong, but as this was a trainee I explained these were payments made after the original monthly payment. The trainee said it was above his ability and so transferred me to an advanced representative who was apparently able to process the request for MOHELA on that same day. I asked for confirmation of this request to be sent to me, but he said that this was not possible, however, I should wait 2-3 business days for the request to be processed and check my account for this confirmation. I checked my account today, Friday XX/XX/XXXX, and the request had not been applied, and there wasn't any evidence that it had even been made. What's more, I could see that this huge ( for me ) payment was made to the interest and the principal, not as I instructed. I called this morning, and received another trainee, who transferred me to another advanced representative, who said that, again, I was not allowed to make payments towards principal. I said this was wrong, and asked to speak to a supervisor. After putting me on hold multiple times, the representative told me I could not speak to her supervisor and that I was given " wrong information '' by the other representatives, and that she could not help me out. She saw the record of my conversation from Monday, but nevertheless said that the request made last Monday could not be made, which, again, is just untrue. After I insisted this could in fact be done, she lost her temper at me. I said I nevertheless needed to speak to someone else who could help me out. After waiting another hour plus on hold, I finally spoke to someone else at MOHELA on the supervisor level, who supposedly made some other additional adjustment on my account ( adjusting the payment to next month, rather than XXXX, which is not something I requested at all, but was apparently the reason the request was not going through ) and said my request should be completed within 5-7 business days. I asked once again if I could have record of this request given the previous conversation, and the supervisor level representative said this wasn't possible, but, again, to look out for confirmation in my account as before. This supervisor level representative said they weren't sure where the previous advanced representative got their information. I have still have no record or extra assurances that I will not have to call back again, for the third time, next week and make sure MOHELA is doing their job. I've had issues with student loans servicers in the past, and have raised flags before about what seems to be deliberate opaqueness built into the system. This is my first month with MOHELA, and this is was by far more frustrating than my past experiences. My previous loan services simply lost paperwork and weren't able to give me basic information on my loan payments, which was bad enough -- Unlike MOHELA however, they did not start arguments with me about what can and can't be done with payments, and did not tell me that I was not able to receive confirmation of steps taken along the process. Further, you would expect that after being transferred from one servicer to another an improvement in service will be part of the package -- How does MOHELA justify not including an option to make payments towards the principal through your own account? This is not negligence or incompetence, it is the design of a system that takes a very cynical view towards students ' actual ability to pay students loans off, and is tailor made to mislead and confuse.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
State: CA
Zip: 915XX
Submitted Via: Web
Date Sent: 2023-10-20
Company Response to Consumer: Closed with explanation
Timely Response: Yes
Consumer Disputed: N/A
Date Received: 2023-10-20
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Subissue: Problem with customer service
Consumer Complaint: I am a full-time teacher. I have been waiting on the phone for 4 hours. I would rather stay on the phone because the call back option has not functioned properly with past attempts being that no call has been returned. There is no email option as well. At least with the loan service -- before consolidating with MOHELA -- had an email option to communicate efficiently with real people. This is not the first time I have called MOHELA and waited an excessive amount of time for a service member. This is a poor way of treating educated professionals who are eagerly trying to manage their loans and personal finances. This loan service is lacking integrity.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
State: KS
Zip: 66614
Submitted Via: Web
Date Sent: 2023-10-20
Company Response to Consumer: Closed with explanation
Timely Response: Yes
Consumer Disputed: N/A
Date Received: 2023-10-20
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Subissue: Trouble with how payments are being handled
Consumer Complaint: I submitted a complaint about the way my public service loan forgiveness qualifying payments were being calculated. MOHELA claims I am 8 qualifying payments short. In their attached response they stated that my last date of certified employment is XX/XX/XXXX. This is incorrect as I submitted certification forms through XXXX of XXXX. I submitted these forms repeatedly. That means there are approximately 20 payments MOHELA is not counting towards my PSLF forgiveness when I am, according to MOHELA, 8 payments short. Additionally they states I was in an in school deferment from XX/XX/XXXX through XX/XX/XXXX. This is incorrect as I applied for and received forbearance during that time. I would like the documentation showing that it was in school deferment and not forbearance. If their records indicate that then the servicer at the time mis-recorded that. As forbearance of over 13 consecutive months these should also be qualifying payments per their own response letter.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
State: NC
Zip: 28804
Submitted Via: Web
Date Sent: 2023-10-20
Company Response to Consumer: Closed with explanation
Timely Response: Yes
Consumer Disputed: N/A
Date Received: 2023-10-19
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Subissue: Trouble with how payments are being handled
Consumer Complaint: I logged into my Mohela account and set up auto pay on XX/XX/XXXX. I received an email from mohela confirming this action. The payment was taken out of my account on XX/XX/XXXX. I confirmed this with my bank XXXX. By Wednesday XX/XX/XXXX. I began ( and continue to receive ) emails stating that I have not paid and am past due. The amount due was {$270.00} and I paid the full amount. I called Mohela and waited and hour to talk to someone. When I finally got through the representative could only confirm that the email came through but she can not locate the payment. She put me on hold for another 15 minutes and said she is escalating the matter to her supervisor and was transferring me. She did so and after being on hold another 52 minutes, I had to hang up. I tried submitting my issue through their online portal but the letter was obviously auto generated because all it did was confirm that I called and stated something to the effect of we are assuming the matter had been resolved. If anyone actually read the complaint they would see that the matter has not been resolved. Despite receiving the confirmation email my account does not show that I have set up automatic payment nor does it list the payment of {$270.00}. The payment did come out of my bank account and I find it hard to believe they lost it. It seems like they are stalling and I feel like they are probably planning on selling my account soon and have excessive wait times as part of the rouse to buy themselves time because they realize most people dont have time to wait hours on the phone. I have also emailed them my phone number and asked for a response by the end of business day yesterday but have yet to hear from them.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
State: NC
Zip: 28213
Submitted Via: Web
Date Sent: 2023-10-19
Company Response to Consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief
Timely Response: Yes
Consumer Disputed: N/A
Date Received: 2023-10-20
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan
Subissue: Problem with forgiveness, cancellation, or discharge
Consumer Complaint: Despite submitting all required PSLF documentation to qualify for special waiver XXXX loan forgiveness, MOHELA stopped short of giving me credit for all qualified payments. They processed all of my submitted employment certifications without updating my XXXX payments counter. I was credited XXXX payments and then MOHELA stopped updating the count. MOHELA has not given any explanation as to why my count stopped at XXXX payments despite having documentation certifying well over XXXX payments and granting me forgiveness. I called the servicer on XX/XX/XXXX but the customer service representative was unable to explain why my count is not being updated. I was advised to wait a few days for the issue to be resolved. After over XXXX weeks nothing has happened and no communication from MOHELA. My count continues at XXXX for over a XXXX days and MOHELA has not communicated with me and I received no explanation or justification.
Company Response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
State: AZ
Zip: 85022
Submitted Via: Web
Date Sent: 2023-10-20
Company Response to Consumer: Closed with explanation
Timely Response: Yes
Consumer Disputed: N/A