So after a literal fight in the last few months, I finally got the notification today that my Federal school loans were forgiven under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
I submitted the application back in April or May or something.
I kept getting rejection notices claiming that information was missing, claiming that dates were backwards, things that were just absolutely incorrect. If I sent a letter showing a blown-up screen-shot picture of the correct information, with big red arrows, then I'd get another rejection notice for some other area that was previously "ok". It seemed 100% like they were gaming the system and making a no-win situation. Of course, like most things, to save money, this is all contracted out to "services", so you aren't actually doing this with the Department of Education. In fact, one time, when trying to get to customer service (it's impossible, there is no way to ever reach a human being, I spent hours on wait) I called a different number at the same company and somehow got connected with someone that "offered to guarantee my application would be approved, for the low low price of $900". Lets take a few steps back though, there's a limited waiver in place that frees up more qualifying payments and time, but to be eligible for ANY of this, you have to consolidate your loans through one of these services. Then, your previous payments don't count, except under the waiver, but the waiver runs out at the end of October. So it seemed like they were just trying to run-out the time on me. And even better, they said on the 15th of this month (yesterday) they were going to transfer my stuff to a "new provider". I have to wonder if that's because the Dept of Ed found they weren't meeting their obligations, but then I was afraid my stuff was going to get all screwed up and I'd have to start over again from the beginning.
So I got a complaint going with the Office of Inspector General and Department of Education. That seems to have done the trick in the last month or so. Again, the absolute mind-fuck part was that whenever I got them to admit that one part was "ok", they would turn around and find some invalid reason to reject another part. I had documented all of this, all the letters I sent to them, all the letters they sent to me, all the times I was showing them with BIG RED ARROWS and shit. Having to write a letter explaining how the year 2005 is before 2012. I eventually got a call-back from the provider (again, likely due to the complaint) and they said my original application was fine...like I'd been submitting new applications every week to address their bullshit responses. They said the earlier stuff was in error. I didn't press it at that point or cuss them out, I got a verbal "ok" and another email I received seemed to be indicating it was going to be ok...again, seemingly a response for making a complaint.
Well, today I finally got an official notice it's been accepted and the balances have been forgiven. I might have been able to do it with the Biden thing, but I had started this and I knew I was eligible, so I was going to take this to the grave, so to speak. But it just blows my mind that this program was being run like this, like it was a game and they were basically trying to run out the time so I wouldn't be eligible. I heard about the difficulty people had with this program on NPR, but I thought it was due to actually not meeting requirements or not understanding them. I had no idea they were up to this kind of shit.
I submitted the application back in April or May or something.
I kept getting rejection notices claiming that information was missing, claiming that dates were backwards, things that were just absolutely incorrect. If I sent a letter showing a blown-up screen-shot picture of the correct information, with big red arrows, then I'd get another rejection notice for some other area that was previously "ok". It seemed 100% like they were gaming the system and making a no-win situation. Of course, like most things, to save money, this is all contracted out to "services", so you aren't actually doing this with the Department of Education. In fact, one time, when trying to get to customer service (it's impossible, there is no way to ever reach a human being, I spent hours on wait) I called a different number at the same company and somehow got connected with someone that "offered to guarantee my application would be approved, for the low low price of $900". Lets take a few steps back though, there's a limited waiver in place that frees up more qualifying payments and time, but to be eligible for ANY of this, you have to consolidate your loans through one of these services. Then, your previous payments don't count, except under the waiver, but the waiver runs out at the end of October. So it seemed like they were just trying to run-out the time on me. And even better, they said on the 15th of this month (yesterday) they were going to transfer my stuff to a "new provider". I have to wonder if that's because the Dept of Ed found they weren't meeting their obligations, but then I was afraid my stuff was going to get all screwed up and I'd have to start over again from the beginning.
So I got a complaint going with the Office of Inspector General and Department of Education. That seems to have done the trick in the last month or so. Again, the absolute mind-fuck part was that whenever I got them to admit that one part was "ok", they would turn around and find some invalid reason to reject another part. I had documented all of this, all the letters I sent to them, all the letters they sent to me, all the times I was showing them with BIG RED ARROWS and shit. Having to write a letter explaining how the year 2005 is before 2012. I eventually got a call-back from the provider (again, likely due to the complaint) and they said my original application was fine...like I'd been submitting new applications every week to address their bullshit responses. They said the earlier stuff was in error. I didn't press it at that point or cuss them out, I got a verbal "ok" and another email I received seemed to be indicating it was going to be ok...again, seemingly a response for making a complaint.
Well, today I finally got an official notice it's been accepted and the balances have been forgiven. I might have been able to do it with the Biden thing, but I had started this and I knew I was eligible, so I was going to take this to the grave, so to speak. But it just blows my mind that this program was being run like this, like it was a game and they were basically trying to run out the time so I wouldn't be eligible. I heard about the difficulty people had with this program on NPR, but I thought it was due to actually not meeting requirements or not understanding them. I had no idea they were up to this kind of shit.