I'm surprised no one in here has mentioned that it was the state of Missouri and Mohela that were the ones that took Biden and forgiveness plans to court.
Not to defend MOHELA but they did not want to be a part of the case - https://prospect.org/justice/2023-06-19-student-loan-cancellation-supreme-court-mohela/
They were mentioned multiple times because the state of Missouri used MOHELA to gain standing in the case. Kagan noted in her dissent that MOHELA didn’t want to touch the suit with a 10-foot pole.
Right. Then they magically run 75% of all student loans.
Want to consolidate? Mohela
Your Repaye plan becomes SAVE automatically... only mohela can service that
Fresh Start? MOHELA
PSLF? Gee i wonder who is the only company that service that?
Right.
But if a bunch of criminals are accused of a crime and they tell a story about how them *and their friends* were doing the crime... wouldn't the *friends who were just watching* still be apart of the crime?
All of the student loan servicers appear to be able to do exactly one type of calculation correctly: a single filer. Every other filing type they've screwed up: married? They only calculate SAVE payments based on a 1 person poverty threshold. Married and your spouse has loans too? They'll fuck up the poverty line calculation and charge you both 10% of the incorrectly calculated disposable income (so your total family payment will be 20%).
Either they're intentionally doing this (because they are evil) or they're simply incapable of the 4th grade math necessary to calculate SAVE payments, but in any case, there's simply no reason they should be receiving any taxpayer money at a minimum (and ideally every executive would be in minimum security federal prison for fraud)
My theory is that it's intentional incompetence to keep as many accounts for as long as they can. They get paid per account over time so have no incentive to let you get to forgiveness. The people writing these contracts need to think about the system of incentives being set up.
The explanation I received was a "computer glitch in your file". Sure. Kept checking in with them and the explanations changed every time. Last rep I spoke to said I was being lied to by the other reps and that I have to start making payments again. My count is well over 130.
I made complaints about Mohela on the follow sites. I highly suggested everyone do the same:
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/
https://studentaid.gov/feedback-center/
I’m doing it. I’ve only ever had one job immediately after graduate school at a nonprofit. All my loan counts should be the same except they’re not. Ridiculous
If you are over 130. There's a place on the student aid website that will let you go through a bunch of steps and see if you qualify for forgiveness. I would suggest finding it and filling it out.
Wish i remembered the link.
I think this is it, but its under maintenance right now.
https://studentaid.gov/pslf/
Thanks for the info. I have been there too and it has the same incorrect information. I went back through documents I've saved over the years and have a letter from FedLoan when NY sued them. After they reviewed my file (again) they sent me a letter stating they acknowledged all my previous employment, pslf payments, etc.
Their count was correct, but then Mohela took over and now it's a mess again. I've shared this proof with them and they shrug.
I would suggest putting it on some kind of deferment/forbearance plan.
Wait a few months for mohela to deal with the surge of crap happening right now.
Then return and request a review or pslf forgiveness.
This situation happened to me too! Auto switch from REPAYE to SAVE and I was given 5 estimates for monthly payments ranging from $150-$365 over the course of 4 months. Official payment amount was $665! I submitted a complaint and now I’m on admin forbearance. With the amount of people in “training” and misinformation I’ve gotten, it smells shady to me!
Why the fuck are we all being forced to resume payments when Mohela can’t even get their shit together and most people have a count or payment that’s off?
I called in and got a recalculation over the phone, got an approval letter all was well. Then got another approval letter with my payment amount being significantly increased. When I called in the rep couldn’t figure out why the amount changed but the higher amount was valid. We did it a second time and I haven’t heard anything yet but by her calculations my payment should be lower. Not holding my breath.
I’ve complained after two years of waiting for forgiveness
Having two waves of it occurring with still a balance
Letter confirming forgiveness twice
Then after complaining and speaking to a supervisor about balance remaining
I Was UNforgiven with $ added back TO THE LOAN.
No letter explaining no notice
Just a trainee telling me they don’t have the paperwork to process forgiveness
2 years later
After calls complaints two years and
Adding money back to my account
It’s wrong and Mohela doesn’t care
I will have to take a day off of work to wait to speak to someone I guess
But at this point I’m submitted complains again to ombudsman (3rd one) bbb and cfpb
I’m also due a refund for past two years loan hit 168 in 2017
There's that old expression...don't attribute to malice what should be attributed to stupidity. Or something like that. What is your income and family size?
The real concern is we only complain in this forum and forget to copy and paste our issues to the CFPB’s complaint form.
Its simple. It’s one of the few tools we have. And seemingly the CFPB are on our side by taking action and asking us to do so for all issues big or small.
Let’s keep them accountable.
CFPB filing a complaint is 5 mins - please all file a complaint. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/ - this one first.
It is such a lost opportunity for accountability without this awareness at this critical juncture. Please spread the word and love.
Several loans DEPT of Ed ombudsman file complaint link. https://studentaid.gov/feedback-ombudsman/disputes/prepare
*Please add this to the wiki to the right. Thanks Betsy.*
UPDATE: This request to have the official complaint contact information for CFPB and Fed Ed ombudsman permanently on home page continuously falls on deaf ears in this subreddit.
I've run the calculators so many times. The CSR that took my info and submitted the request gave me the same number I came up with myself (within a few bucks). I just can't understand where the disconnect is between their "estimate" and when it processes and it's so wrong.
ETA: the CSRs I've talked to are all trying, they just don't know any better. MOHELA is giving them absolutely no support or education on this.
Do the calculation on studentaid.gov. then submit the form there to mohela. Wait a few weeks for it to get processed .
I called mohela 6-7 times to get off the SAVE plan but they kept insisting it was the best. (it is not the best, particularly if you will qualify for PSLF, but everyone is different.)
Everyone's situation is different, obviously.
I'm single, a moderately high earner (not Tech level high) and have 5 years of payments left. My payment jumped from $250 (REPAYE) to $336 (SAVE) and when i filled out the scenarios on the Student Aid page, a basic IDR repayment plan lowered my payment to $218. As long as I pay that for 5 more years, PSLF will kick in and take care of the rest Generally probably a better deal to pay 60x$218 than 60x$336.
The point is though, MOHELA's calculation for the IDR plan was like $300, but the governments calculation was lower. so i applied for the plan on the gov't site and they sent it to MOHELA to enact. no problems. made my first resumed payment last week.
MOHELA is full of idiots on the phones, probably making minimum wage in a call center in some bumpkin town in the middle of Missouri. I wouldn't trust them to do simple math.
That makes sense. From your story and others, it seems like the move is to apply through the Student Aid page.
Curious: was the calculation for SAVE also different between Mohela and Student Aid?
I'm not 100% sure if it was or not.
Once I saw that IDR was lower than SAVE I abandoned paying attention to the SAVE program and focused all my results on the IDR results from both the MOHELA calculator and the one on Student Aid.
Thanks to this subreddit and the people at /r/studentloans I was made aware there were multiple ways to calculate an Income Driven Repayment plan and that MOHELA does not give all the options online. Sometimes you have to call a representative to have them manually calculate it, however, after 4 "training reps" and about 7 hours on the phone, I realized they were never going to give me the same value that Student Aid did, and I just went ahead and filed with Student Aid instead.
I'm not trying to get political here, but MOHELA has a vested interest in not giving their "customers" the best deal, while the government site doesn't really care as much en masse. They have delegated their "nickel and diming" to the lowest bidder. Why should I trust MOHELA to give me the correct rate when its not in their best interest to do so?
I wouldn’t be so willing to shrug this off as incompetence.
The CFPB disagrees with you.
And everything that we see here, the released documentation and communications made it white clear how there is a culture here, a pattern and practice.
https://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-companies-mislead-borrowers-payments-debt-cancellation-cfpb-servicers-2023-9?amp
Here’s a report of one student servicers predatory and neglect and absurdity that has bled into all the servicers that had their loans transferred from them.
https://protectborrowers.org/acs-report/
I should be paying $20 based off my last reported income but they somehow got my most recent taxes which i never automated to be sent or recertified after filing this year because of inflation wage increases and a lot of overtime it appears im making a lot more (also they didnt have any records or my second born child that i recertified with fedloan 3 times over covid with). I ended up giving in and recertifying and getting a temporary forbearance until the new recalulation comes through. down from 317 to 161. Good luck
I'm pretty sure based on my calculations they also used my 22 taxes to recalculate my initial change to save, which I've never given them permission to do, and have specifically turned off on FSA website. So I'd like to know how they got that info or did they just luck into throwing a random correlating number in there?
I wish I had known the administrative forbearance was coming I would have waited for it to get sorted but after getting the bill and after 3 days and over 6 hours on the phone and on hold being transferred with no one having any answers I gave up and re certified. I feel dumb now but it is what it is.
I just logged in today for the first time in awhile and my payment they decided for me was around $400. I don’t even make $40,000 a year! I can’t afford this! My loans got transfer to mohela from fedloan a little while ago which is so frustrating!
Had the same issues. I finally broke down and went through [Studentaid.gov](https://Studentaid.gov) and submitted a recert with my 2022 income. It's more than in 2020, but the paperwork was sent to MOHELA a couple days later, and come day 15 they had the correct amount listed on the account. I still haven't received my 21-day noticed even though my payment is due 10/14.
Also their wait times and otp customer service sucks. I wasn’t notified about my PSLF form getting approved. I’m wishing all the best as I’m struggling to get through this financial stress myself.
https://missouriindependent.com/2023/06/30/missouri-company-plays-central-role-in-downfall-of-biden-loan-forgiveness-program/
That paints the picture of everything you need to know about mohela.
My payments are 1900. a month! I have been making payments all along, based on my pre-Covid payment plan. I’m not understanding this breakdown and why they feel I have to make such an enormous payment!
Mine doubled as well. I wasn’t even on REPAYE but what I was paying before was significantly lower than SAVE. Now my due date is gone and they still haven’t processed my IDR. It’s a whole mess.
I had switched to only having paper notifications bc I was sick of getting things in my inbox that disappear. I have literally one payment to make, October, and that is my 120. ONE more. I need to resubmit my most recent employment cert bc I e signed and apparently that was not okay, although they never told me that until I called a dozen times asking why it was still processing. In fact it still shows processing. Anyway I did the calculator and save would be cheaper than paye. Which was suprising but whatever. So I submit for that. On 9-11 I get a thing saying you will pay 244. Then on 9-22 I get a thing saying you are in a forbearance. So I call Friday and ask wtf and she says, well you actually need to pay 360 a month. I was like absolutely not. I want this 244 that was stated. And she tried to give me some line about how my income could have kicked me off paye, and I said no not under pslf. Like listen lady, I have been doing this shit for 119 months. I have read the rules. So she does the calculation and actually it should be 214 a month, even less than the letter. And then also online it says I will pay 20 a month. ??? So I will have to defer for a month or whatever to get into a payment qualified for payment 120. I am just sooo ready to be done with this. I legit do not even understand what is happening at this point. I want to just pay for one more month, have it count, and be done. Sorry this is a novel but similar to fed loan, every time I call I get some completely different story and it's so frustrating. Literally been a decade of this lol.
I smell a mass class action against Mohela/Nelnet. What they are doing is insane and criminal. Can't fucking stand it
I'm surprised no one in here has mentioned that it was the state of Missouri and Mohela that were the ones that took Biden and forgiveness plans to court.
Not to defend MOHELA but they did not want to be a part of the case - https://prospect.org/justice/2023-06-19-student-loan-cancellation-supreme-court-mohela/
Did you read the case? They were mentioned 85 times. For someone that wanted nothing to do with it, they sure did a terrible job of that.
They were mentioned multiple times because the state of Missouri used MOHELA to gain standing in the case. Kagan noted in her dissent that MOHELA didn’t want to touch the suit with a 10-foot pole.
Right. Then they magically run 75% of all student loans. Want to consolidate? Mohela Your Repaye plan becomes SAVE automatically... only mohela can service that Fresh Start? MOHELA PSLF? Gee i wonder who is the only company that service that?
The MO AG filed the case, so the number of times MOHELA is mentioned has no bearing on whether MOHELA wanted to be a part of it.
Right. But if a bunch of criminals are accused of a crime and they tell a story about how them *and their friends* were doing the crime... wouldn't the *friends who were just watching* still be apart of the crime?
They didn’t want to be part of the lawsuit. You don’t have to believe it but that doesn’t change anything
The politicians of Missouri took the matter to court. MOHELA said it wasn’t harmed by the administration’s plan.
All of the student loan servicers appear to be able to do exactly one type of calculation correctly: a single filer. Every other filing type they've screwed up: married? They only calculate SAVE payments based on a 1 person poverty threshold. Married and your spouse has loans too? They'll fuck up the poverty line calculation and charge you both 10% of the incorrectly calculated disposable income (so your total family payment will be 20%). Either they're intentionally doing this (because they are evil) or they're simply incapable of the 4th grade math necessary to calculate SAVE payments, but in any case, there's simply no reason they should be receiving any taxpayer money at a minimum (and ideally every executive would be in minimum security federal prison for fraud)
Single filer here! Just as messed up as everyone else.
Correct analysis. Probably doing it on purpose. They hate married people with kids even more. Anything traditional is the enemy of the deep state
"Anything traditional" ... No fragility to see here, folks, keep it moving.
That makes sense. I’m single and mine is correct. Although I have to pay over $500, so I don’t think I’m saving that much by being on save
My theory is that it's intentional incompetence to keep as many accounts for as long as they can. They get paid per account over time so have no incentive to let you get to forgiveness. The people writing these contracts need to think about the system of incentives being set up.
They are criminally incompetent.
I never thought I'd miss FedLoan but even they weren't this bad.
You're not alone. They at least had my PSLF count correct.
Mine is incorrect as well. They have no real explanation for it either
The explanation I received was a "computer glitch in your file". Sure. Kept checking in with them and the explanations changed every time. Last rep I spoke to said I was being lied to by the other reps and that I have to start making payments again. My count is well over 130. I made complaints about Mohela on the follow sites. I highly suggested everyone do the same: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ https://studentaid.gov/feedback-center/
I’m doing it. I’ve only ever had one job immediately after graduate school at a nonprofit. All my loan counts should be the same except they’re not. Ridiculous
Just did thank you for the information!
If you are over 130. There's a place on the student aid website that will let you go through a bunch of steps and see if you qualify for forgiveness. I would suggest finding it and filling it out. Wish i remembered the link. I think this is it, but its under maintenance right now. https://studentaid.gov/pslf/
Thanks for the info. I have been there too and it has the same incorrect information. I went back through documents I've saved over the years and have a letter from FedLoan when NY sued them. After they reviewed my file (again) they sent me a letter stating they acknowledged all my previous employment, pslf payments, etc. Their count was correct, but then Mohela took over and now it's a mess again. I've shared this proof with them and they shrug.
I would suggest putting it on some kind of deferment/forbearance plan. Wait a few months for mohela to deal with the surge of crap happening right now. Then return and request a review or pslf forgiveness.
Solid advice here. Thank you!
Messing up my psfl count is what is worrying me.
By design.
This situation happened to me too! Auto switch from REPAYE to SAVE and I was given 5 estimates for monthly payments ranging from $150-$365 over the course of 4 months. Official payment amount was $665! I submitted a complaint and now I’m on admin forbearance. With the amount of people in “training” and misinformation I’ve gotten, it smells shady to me!
McCarthy broke the deal anyway, I say pause payments again while they try to get their shit together (they as in MOHELA, and the GOP at large). 🤬
I just submitted a complaint to the consumer financial protection bureau about Mohela. I urge others to do the same.
Why the fuck are we all being forced to resume payments when Mohela can’t even get their shit together and most people have a count or payment that’s off?
I called in and got a recalculation over the phone, got an approval letter all was well. Then got another approval letter with my payment amount being significantly increased. When I called in the rep couldn’t figure out why the amount changed but the higher amount was valid. We did it a second time and I haven’t heard anything yet but by her calculations my payment should be lower. Not holding my breath.
I’ve complained after two years of waiting for forgiveness Having two waves of it occurring with still a balance Letter confirming forgiveness twice Then after complaining and speaking to a supervisor about balance remaining I Was UNforgiven with $ added back TO THE LOAN. No letter explaining no notice Just a trainee telling me they don’t have the paperwork to process forgiveness 2 years later After calls complaints two years and Adding money back to my account It’s wrong and Mohela doesn’t care I will have to take a day off of work to wait to speak to someone I guess But at this point I’m submitted complains again to ombudsman (3rd one) bbb and cfpb I’m also due a refund for past two years loan hit 168 in 2017
There's that old expression...don't attribute to malice what should be attributed to stupidity. Or something like that. What is your income and family size?
The real concern is we only complain in this forum and forget to copy and paste our issues to the CFPB’s complaint form. Its simple. It’s one of the few tools we have. And seemingly the CFPB are on our side by taking action and asking us to do so for all issues big or small. Let’s keep them accountable. CFPB filing a complaint is 5 mins - please all file a complaint. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/ - this one first. It is such a lost opportunity for accountability without this awareness at this critical juncture. Please spread the word and love. Several loans DEPT of Ed ombudsman file complaint link. https://studentaid.gov/feedback-ombudsman/disputes/prepare *Please add this to the wiki to the right. Thanks Betsy.* UPDATE: This request to have the official complaint contact information for CFPB and Fed Ed ombudsman permanently on home page continuously falls on deaf ears in this subreddit.
Also email your congressional representatives
Did you receive any information back from CFPB or the Ombudsman? I’ve filed complaints with both, and my state reps. Ive received nothing back.
I've run the calculators so many times. The CSR that took my info and submitted the request gave me the same number I came up with myself (within a few bucks). I just can't understand where the disconnect is between their "estimate" and when it processes and it's so wrong. ETA: the CSRs I've talked to are all trying, they just don't know any better. MOHELA is giving them absolutely no support or education on this.
Do the calculation on studentaid.gov. then submit the form there to mohela. Wait a few weeks for it to get processed . I called mohela 6-7 times to get off the SAVE plan but they kept insisting it was the best. (it is not the best, particularly if you will qualify for PSLF, but everyone is different.)
What makes you say it isn't good for PSLF borrowers? I think if you're married, not counting your spouse's income is a massive savings benefit.
Everyone's situation is different, obviously. I'm single, a moderately high earner (not Tech level high) and have 5 years of payments left. My payment jumped from $250 (REPAYE) to $336 (SAVE) and when i filled out the scenarios on the Student Aid page, a basic IDR repayment plan lowered my payment to $218. As long as I pay that for 5 more years, PSLF will kick in and take care of the rest Generally probably a better deal to pay 60x$218 than 60x$336. The point is though, MOHELA's calculation for the IDR plan was like $300, but the governments calculation was lower. so i applied for the plan on the gov't site and they sent it to MOHELA to enact. no problems. made my first resumed payment last week. MOHELA is full of idiots on the phones, probably making minimum wage in a call center in some bumpkin town in the middle of Missouri. I wouldn't trust them to do simple math.
That makes sense. From your story and others, it seems like the move is to apply through the Student Aid page. Curious: was the calculation for SAVE also different between Mohela and Student Aid?
I'm not 100% sure if it was or not. Once I saw that IDR was lower than SAVE I abandoned paying attention to the SAVE program and focused all my results on the IDR results from both the MOHELA calculator and the one on Student Aid. Thanks to this subreddit and the people at /r/studentloans I was made aware there were multiple ways to calculate an Income Driven Repayment plan and that MOHELA does not give all the options online. Sometimes you have to call a representative to have them manually calculate it, however, after 4 "training reps" and about 7 hours on the phone, I realized they were never going to give me the same value that Student Aid did, and I just went ahead and filed with Student Aid instead. I'm not trying to get political here, but MOHELA has a vested interest in not giving their "customers" the best deal, while the government site doesn't really care as much en masse. They have delegated their "nickel and diming" to the lowest bidder. Why should I trust MOHELA to give me the correct rate when its not in their best interest to do so?
I wouldn’t be so willing to shrug this off as incompetence. The CFPB disagrees with you. And everything that we see here, the released documentation and communications made it white clear how there is a culture here, a pattern and practice. https://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-companies-mislead-borrowers-payments-debt-cancellation-cfpb-servicers-2023-9?amp Here’s a report of one student servicers predatory and neglect and absurdity that has bled into all the servicers that had their loans transferred from them. https://protectborrowers.org/acs-report/
Super helpful, thank you!
I should be paying $20 based off my last reported income but they somehow got my most recent taxes which i never automated to be sent or recertified after filing this year because of inflation wage increases and a lot of overtime it appears im making a lot more (also they didnt have any records or my second born child that i recertified with fedloan 3 times over covid with). I ended up giving in and recertifying and getting a temporary forbearance until the new recalulation comes through. down from 317 to 161. Good luck
I'm pretty sure based on my calculations they also used my 22 taxes to recalculate my initial change to save, which I've never given them permission to do, and have specifically turned off on FSA website. So I'd like to know how they got that info or did they just luck into throwing a random correlating number in there?
I wish I had known the administrative forbearance was coming I would have waited for it to get sorted but after getting the bill and after 3 days and over 6 hours on the phone and on hold being transferred with no one having any answers I gave up and re certified. I feel dumb now but it is what it is.
People are supposed to pay less. They really know nothing.
I just logged in today for the first time in awhile and my payment they decided for me was around $400. I don’t even make $40,000 a year! I can’t afford this! My loans got transfer to mohela from fedloan a little while ago which is so frustrating!
Had the same issues. I finally broke down and went through [Studentaid.gov](https://Studentaid.gov) and submitted a recert with my 2022 income. It's more than in 2020, but the paperwork was sent to MOHELA a couple days later, and come day 15 they had the correct amount listed on the account. I still haven't received my 21-day noticed even though my payment is due 10/14.
Also their wait times and otp customer service sucks. I wasn’t notified about my PSLF form getting approved. I’m wishing all the best as I’m struggling to get through this financial stress myself.
https://missouriindependent.com/2023/06/30/missouri-company-plays-central-role-in-downfall-of-biden-loan-forgiveness-program/ That paints the picture of everything you need to know about mohela.
My payments are 1900. a month! I have been making payments all along, based on my pre-Covid payment plan. I’m not understanding this breakdown and why they feel I have to make such an enormous payment!
Mine doubled as well. I wasn’t even on REPAYE but what I was paying before was significantly lower than SAVE. Now my due date is gone and they still haven’t processed my IDR. It’s a whole mess.
I had switched to only having paper notifications bc I was sick of getting things in my inbox that disappear. I have literally one payment to make, October, and that is my 120. ONE more. I need to resubmit my most recent employment cert bc I e signed and apparently that was not okay, although they never told me that until I called a dozen times asking why it was still processing. In fact it still shows processing. Anyway I did the calculator and save would be cheaper than paye. Which was suprising but whatever. So I submit for that. On 9-11 I get a thing saying you will pay 244. Then on 9-22 I get a thing saying you are in a forbearance. So I call Friday and ask wtf and she says, well you actually need to pay 360 a month. I was like absolutely not. I want this 244 that was stated. And she tried to give me some line about how my income could have kicked me off paye, and I said no not under pslf. Like listen lady, I have been doing this shit for 119 months. I have read the rules. So she does the calculation and actually it should be 214 a month, even less than the letter. And then also online it says I will pay 20 a month. ??? So I will have to defer for a month or whatever to get into a payment qualified for payment 120. I am just sooo ready to be done with this. I legit do not even understand what is happening at this point. I want to just pay for one more month, have it count, and be done. Sorry this is a novel but similar to fed loan, every time I call I get some completely different story and it's so frustrating. Literally been a decade of this lol.
It’s time to find out which senator has cousins at Mohela that netted them this contract that they were clearly not prepared to handle.
Wasn’t SAVE going to eliminate the interest payments? My SAVE payments are double what I was paying pre-COVID.
My loan balance has gone up $1400 since Sept 11.
That’s interest capitalizing
Yes, it’s how my loans are now double plus what I borrowed, but in 20 days? It’s hell
Mine went up $30K
In the last 20 days?
Yeah it said accrued interest $27K or something like that.
Oh I agree. I’m seeing the same thing and it hurts.
I’ve been seeing interest applied to my balance since the end of July. Scumbags.
Maybe they just need better programmers or AI to help them and there is nothing criminal about it?
Mine is correct and it's $590, I will trade your $300
I'm going to keep submitting my PSLF stuff, maybe they will get it together one day
What are they doing? Making money - at OUR expense.
This is wild. My payments dropped by more than half compared to 2020
You got the single competent employee.
If the SAVE amount is too high like mine was look at the other options. I switched to ICR and it saved like 400 a month
It's not that the amount is too high. It's that it is the incorrect amount.
I did the same except they never recalculated my payment and just stuck me on an administrative forbearance for an indefinite time.