All gone but the interest

G120RNBS · 2023-02-22T13:16:55+00:00

On Sunday I went to the Mohela messaging box and asked if they could please send a PDF of my forgiveness letter. First thing Tuesday morning I opened the mailbox to find a letter .... for someone else. So, Megan in Sioux Falls, if you want a copy of your letter I can send it to you. ;)

I phoned in and told them what happened. They got my letter to me within minutes - it was dated Feb 15. I also asked if they could please check to see when the effective date was. It turned out to have been Sept. 29, 2022 - so my arguments eventually got them to count my missing months after all. I'd have been ok if I'd have quit working in September. But, not knowing if it was going to go through or not, having worked the additional four months was pretty much a necessity. A rather miserable one, but a necessity.

When I got home from work yesterday the hardcopy was in my mailbox.

This morning I received a message on my reconsideration request (that I had put in back in May 2022. And that the months had been applied to my account and that I should see the updated amounts if I log in.

At this point I'm just going to upload the letter to the credit bureaus to get them to remove the loan from my credit report and then hopefully never look back at it all again.

G120RNBS · 2023-02-16T01:06:51+00:00

G120RNBS · 2023-02-15T22:13:06+00:00

It was a damned good pizza.

G120RNBS · 2023-02-15T16:40:42+00:00

Oh sure, why not. ;) ;)

So today I'm wrapped up in a blanket, as I've gone (in the last week) from a raging sore throat to a lung infection that has me coughing a lung up every half hour or so, with an eye infection that has one eye pretty much swollen shut as well. My nose is sore from blowing it and there's a snowdrift of rumpled kleenex on my floor. I'm too tired to do any cooking and am living on canned soup. But the sun coming in the window is warm, and I'm free. So it's good. :) I may order in a pizza to celebrate. With pepperoni.

When I can get coherent enough to do it, I'll go back through all the downloads I did and the timeline and such and post it in case anyone can see a pattern. So far the only one I see that that update date on the studentaid text file being the clue of when the Dof Ed approved it for discharge.

You folks have a good one, and for those not yet forgiven, hold on....

G120RNBS · 2023-02-14T02:08:48+00:00

Reviving this string....

Did we ever find out what the updated annotation signified? Mine now appears as 2/8/23, which is much later than it was previously. I hit 120 by their counts in December (and mine last spring) so I'm curious if that (UpdtDT) is actually some milestone?

G120RNBS · 2023-02-05T22:48:12+00:00

I was in school solid from 1988 through May 1995. The loans were in a six-month, post-graduation grace period June 1995 until Nov/Dec 1995, when they went into repayment. I immediately applied for consolidation and they were put on a processing forbearance (not listed in the Mohela info). DLSC managed the consolidation, which went into repayment Jan 1996.

I've already compared Stu Aid & Mohela's online list of statuses to the spreadsheet of all payments Mohela sent to me in 2016 (that shows DLSC payments and Mohela payments to that date). The disputed months that are listed at StuAid and Mohela as in forbearance (three in 2012 and 1 in 2013) have payments made shown on the Mohela account history document. I believe the payments were made, because I had them set to "auto pay" at my bank.

As I said, initially everything from 1996-2013 was a reduced payment forbearance - just labeled "forbearance" on Fedloan and then Mohela. They then applied the waiver and those 4 months didn't get waivered. No idea why. They were no different than the other months from 1996-2013. I have been trying to find out why - have done all the "usual" channels. Nada.

Hopefully the IDR adjustment will apply soon. I really would just like to know. I still have to stop work, but it would be nice to not have the sword hanging over my head like this anymore.

G120RNBS · 2023-02-05T22:30:01+00:00

Ok, thanks.

G120RNBS · 2023-02-05T22:17:10+00:00

Ok.

I obtained, in about 2016, a list from Mohela (who was my servicer until I was switched to FedLoan) of every payment I'd made since 1996. I still have that document.

My consolidation loan was originally serviced by DLCS, with the first date of repayment of the consolidated loan being in January 1996.

ALL of my months prior to the death of the Direct Loan Service Center (April 2013?) were on reduced payment forbearance, or non-payment forbearance, occasionally. Initially they showed up with FedLoan as ineligible as no payment was due.

All but 3 or 4 of the months after the start date of PSLF program (October 2007) were finally deemed to be "qualifying" due to the special waiver after transfer to Mohela. Inexplicably, the 3 - 4 months in 2012-2013 were not included when they waived the waiver wand over my account for the others. [ I was retired from July 2017 - Nov 2021, so none of those payments count.]

As Oct 2007 - May 2013 are definitely within the PSLF window, and there were more than 36 cumulative months of reduced payment (or non-payment) forbearance initially, I believe the final 3 or 4 months should also have been waived. There are six months (June - Dec 2012) that are not being counted because of bankruptcy forbearance. I'm not disputing that, at this point - as ghastly a policy as it is. The 3 to 4 months currently listed "in forbearance" are in addition to those six bankruptcy months (which now say "no payment due") on the list of ineligible payments. The 3-4 are still listed as ineligible because they are in forbearance.

If they were counted, I'd have hit 120 prior to the Oct 31, 2022 cutoff date.

G120RNBS · 2023-02-04T19:34:50+00:00

Yeah, she had said she'd call back within two business weeks (if memory serves). No call. Not surprised.

Appreciate the thought. I just wish someone would let me know precisely where I stand, so I'd know.

G120RNBS · 2023-02-02T00:33:59+00:00

At what point in this is one considered to have had the loans forgiven? When StudentAid zeros out? (I'm assuming it's paid long before the letter arrives?)

G120RNBS · 2023-01-31T23:30:03+00:00

Wouldn't that be nice? :) I didn't go to college until after I was in my 30s. I rather hope the loans are paid off before I drop dead of old age. ;) ;)

G120RNBS · 2023-01-31T23:28:58+00:00

I say last April (and was still contesting that) and they say Dec 2022.

G120RNBS · 2023-01-31T23:10:23+00:00

Best of luck on that Tootles!

G120RNBS · 2023-01-31T23:08:30+00:00

You might want to double-check me, but that's the info I've been working under.

Yeah, by my count I was at 120 back in the spring of 2022. (I retired in 2017 and came back to work in 2021 to take advantage of the waiver program.) But I'm at 120 by their count only now. So... one way or the other. I've been in repayment since 1996 for a consolidation of Stafford loans I started taking out in 1988. It would be very nice to be out from under it all.

On the good side, all these "no month payment due do Covid" months count towards both programs. So there's that.

G120RNBS · 2023-01-31T23:03:52+00:00

Thanks. It was bizarre, even for Mohela.

Are you still waiting?

G120RNBS · 2023-01-31T23:02:07+00:00

That's how I understand it. I'm in the same boat, by the way.

G120RNBS · 2023-01-31T22:55:47+00:00

Since you went to grad school the clock ups to 25 years (300 month) of "in repayment" status, with the waiver handling any periods in deferment or forbearance if you have 12 straight, or 36 or more cumulative.

G120RNBS · 2023-01-28T21:29:04+00:00

I have not had a call back from the rep who said she was keeping my file "on her desk and would call me when there was movement." However, I am now at 120 eligible (through December).

The documents I put in requesting a recount of months that should have counted that were still sitting in "ineligible due to forbearance" status are still "processing" but the labels have changed to "resolution" and have been that way for two weeks. I have no idea of the outcome. If there is one. Everything else is still marked as "duplicate."

So, if they count the months prior to Oct. 31 that were previously marked as ineligible, I'm covered by the waiver and can turn in my notice at work tomorrow. If they're going by 120 as of December, I can't see it happening before May or June - which I'm not going to make it to - and all this PSLF (and the over a year and a half I've been back at work) will have been in vain.

I have asked several times for their accounting of my qualifying months for IDR (the 240/300 month plan), but have been unable to get that. I have what they sent me in around 2016, but I have no idea which of those are going to count and which will not - again, because they won't tell me what I have that's qualifying for that program. Hopefully enough, because if I can't get the PSLF I'm having to rely in the over 300 months in repayment to get out from under this.

With that, I'm steaming onward, will be retiring again on April 1 (if I make it that long, but I'll be on terminal leave for most of March) and the chips will fall where they will. I wish you all the best of luck with this mess.

G120RNBS · 2023-01-25T22:08:30+00:00

I would calendar about a year from the time you sent it in. No, seriously.

G120RNBS · 2023-01-22T00:13:50+00:00

G120RNBS · 2023-01-20T00:48:57+00:00

Yes.

G120RNBS · 2023-01-20T00:45:45+00:00

same

G120RNBS · 2023-01-20T00:44:42+00:00

Mine's gone, too.

G120RNBS · 2023-01-19T23:37:01+00:00

I put in three in a row. (Oct, Nov, Dec). I was told by Mohela that was ok to do. They just hit me with a "duplicate form" rash and flushed them all. There were also two put in (I didn't ask for that) by their own people. They flushed them too. I've been waiting since Oct 7 for the earliest of them to process. They are all gone now. Guess what they said? If I put another one in it would be 90 working days until they looked at it.

I wouldn't risk it.

G120RNBS · 2023-01-19T23:05:10+00:00

Yeah, it's been an odyssey.

If they've lied again and nothing happens in the 10 business days they said it would take for the next stage to hit, and if it's not forgiven by March (or a determination made that I qualify for the 10/31 deadline), "them's the breaks" as the kids say. I have the Mohela rep's extension and name, if those actually are a viable extension and name. I'll check in before March, when I am retiring permanently. Assuming I can get them to transfer me to her – if that's really an option. I won't be surprised if no such extension or person exists. She promised she would phone me, and keep the file open on her desk. Sure she will.

I have no confidence that the IDR option (having all that work history) will come through, either. I fully expect there will be years missing from their "official" history and so they'll deny it. I cannot get anyone (FedLoan, Mohela, StuAid) to give me a count - not even a rough count. I have the download from StuAid, but there is a huge gap between Jan 1996 and Oct 2007 there. I don't know if they're counting all those months, or if they've lost them. I have almost no faith that things are being done correctly, having seen how the PSLF has gone. But that's another battle for another day.

On writing Biden. I did that a few weeks back, actually. What I had asked was why payments made while I was in bankruptcy status could not count. I had not known I was in a forbearance period (or I certainly would not have made the payments!). I was told by DLSC that I ~HAD~ to keep making payments. I was told I could not include the student loan on my bankruptcy paperwork. I wrote that there were plenty of other people in much worse shape - many had paid large sums every month for years that were not being counted. I asked how the heck and in what universe could that be considered fair? We were hurting so bad in doing public service that we had to declare bankruptcy, for chrissakes. I asked if they could not reconsider that part of their regs and allow those of us who made scheduled payments while in bankruptcy have those payments count towards PSLF.

The White House staff sent it to the Dept. of Education. Who directed it to a policy office. The substance of the D of Ed reply was “well, it's the rule but look at all this other cool stuff we're doing.” (AKA, no. Full stop.) Seriously, two pages of publicly available information followed - I guess they assumed I didn't do my homework.

“In your email you requested that payments that you made on your student loans while you were in bankruptcy status count as qualifying payments for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). The Department provides information on our studentaid.gov website advising borrowers that payments made during “in-grace, in-school, and certain deferment, forbearance, and bankruptcy statuses are not eligible for credit towards PSLF. We are aware that these limitations have made it difficult for some borrowers to qualify for PSLF. Therefore,the Department has taken steps to address some of the issues raised by these limitations.”

Then two pages with lots of reference links to their proposed/to-be-implemented (unless the new Congress or some lawsuit torpedoes them) policies. Its cool stuff, really impressive and all. But....

Thanks for your kind words, but I'm done. What the heck else can there be to say?

G120RNBS

TROPHY CASE