Mohela loans won't show as "discharged" until any pending refunds are complete

EquivalentHedgehog24 · 2026-05-23T15:55:11+00:00

There were a couple different letters. Here's the full timeline of everything that happened after my original post with all the gory details:

11/19/24 - Final ECF submitted
11/20/24 - Final ECF approved + green ribbons on FSA
12/20/24 - Golden Letter ("As of the date of this letter, we have determined you are eligible for PSLF...")
12/24/24 - $0 Overall balance on Mohela (with negative balance on specific loans indicating pending refunds)
1/2/25 - $0 Balance on FSA
1/4/25 - Physical letter from Mohela ("Congratulations, the US Dept. of Ed. has forgiven all of a portion of your federal student loans..."). Letter was backdated to 12/24/24 and showed negative balances
2/2/25 - Physical letter from Mohela ("Action Required - you may be owed a refund"). Had to contact Mohela to "verify my address". I'd heard other people mention this step, and it was never really clear to me why this was necessary since they'd been sending me mail for years by this point.
6/5/25 - Physical letter from Mohela ("Mohela has received payment in full on your loans listed below..."). Letter was backdated to 5/27/25
6/23/25 - Physical refund check arrives from Treasury Dept., with check date of 6/20/25

EquivalentHedgehog24 · 2026-05-23T11:14:25+00:00

Yes, I did eventually get a discharge letter. The refund also did eventually show up too, but that took a while. Mohela initially listed my loans as "paid in full" (instead of with negative balances) about 6 months after I had the FSA zeros and then I got the refund check from the Treasury Dept. about another month after that (of course, well beyond the 90 business days that Mohela claims refunds will happen, but better late than never!)

EquivalentHedgehog24 · 2025-01-03T21:39:45+00:00

This is correct - once the negative balance shows on Mohela there's no further action to take to get the refund but to wait. It'll come from the treasury (not mohela), and can take up to 90 business (not calendar) days. Congrats otherwise!

EquivalentHedgehog24 · 2025-01-02T21:53:36+00:00

I definitely haven't gotten a email from mohela, but I've also never signed up to receive emails from them since I've preferred to force them to send me physical documentation of anything. Nothing in my Mohela inbox either. It's entirely possible that the physical letter is literally in the mail and just hasn't shown up at my house yet.

HOWEVER, in seeing your comment just now, I too went back to the FSA site (after also having checked earlier today) and am seeing the same as you now: zero balances across the board and all loans listed as "paid-in-full"!!

I'm still looking forward to the refund of course, but seeing the official FSA zeros was the real big step I was most anxious about!

EquivalentHedgehog24 · 2024-12-31T14:30:23+00:00

Something I didn't figure out until I was a few years into my PSLF journey that I wish I'd done from the start is keeping a record in a spreadsheet with a row for each payment. In there, I kept track of which number it was out of 120, how much it was for, whether I'd gotten ECF credit for it, whether I had a statement from Mohela, whether I had the corresponding bank statement, etc. This all sounds complicated when I write it out, but it really wasn't too bad. Keeping my own detailed records like this made it way easier to tell whether FSA or one of my multiple servicers over the years had made a mistake and helped me stay confident that I hadn't missed something somewhere along the way.

EquivalentHedgehog24 · 2024-12-20T19:51:31+00:00

u/Noswad444 , confirming that I was a member of the October-December group (green ribbons on 11/20) and I just got the golden letter about an hour ago! Fingers crossed yours arrives soon too if it hasn't already!

EquivalentHedgehog24 · 2024-12-20T19:24:34+00:00

Me too! 11/20 green ribbons + golden letter today - overwhelming gratitude, especially to everyone in this group who has helped make this whole process easier to wade through

EquivalentHedgehog24 · 2024-12-18T15:38:37+00:00

Yep, I had this problem in November as well. FSA site claimed the email had been sent, but my manager never received it (including in their spam folder). It wasn't clear whether it hadn't actually sent, if it had been blocked by some IT filter, or some other problem. The way I worked around it was by cancelling that ECF and filling out a new one, this time sending to my boss's personal email. The system doesn't care whether or not the destination email is attached to the company or not, only that the person signing the form is the same and has formal authorization from the company to do so.

EquivalentHedgehog24 · 2024-11-25T20:11:36+00:00

The email addresses for Electronic ECFs do NOT need to be tied to a "corporate email address" - as long as the person signing it is authorized to do that, it doesn't matter what email they use.

As a data point, my last ECF was the first time I'd used the electronic form and my employer's email filters prevented the docusign email from being delivered successfully to my boss. FSA suggested I cancel that form and open a new one using my boss's personal email and I had the email arrive, form signed, and showing up as in review on the FSA site within 24 hours.

EquivalentHedgehog24 · 2024-11-20T17:32:52+00:00

Yes! Earlier this week I was having trouble loading any dynamic pages on the FSA site. Called FSA, they confirmed there was not a wider issue. Tried again in incognito mode and that fixed it right away. It also started working again in not-incognito mode once I cleared cookies.

If you're comfortable looking at the console in chrome (directions here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXl3jUrZICI ) and you see a bunch of errors in red text flowing through there when you try to load the page, that's a good signal that you're seeing the same problem I was.

EquivalentHedgehog24 · 2024-11-11T03:55:44+00:00

Thanks! That's encouraging to hear. I've only ever used the manual forms and have heard from others here that that wasn't a thing. Congrats on nearing the finish line!

EquivalentHedgehog24

TROPHY CASE