Consumer complaint received 2018-09-03
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Trouble with how payments are being handled

Complaint:
Hello. I am writing to make a formal complaint about the student loan company Navient, which currently owns my student debt. A US citizen, I have lived abroad in the XXXX for 18 years. In the past year, Navient has changed its payment technologies so that it is now technically impossible for me to pay my loans, or possible only with excessively additional high monthly fees incurred. I have every intention of paying the loans and have been paying them, but am now incurring late fees and late notices despite spending hours on the telephone with different offices in the company to resolve the issue. This is excessively punitive, unreasonable ( as my payments have been accepted in the past ) and is having a seriously detrimental effect on my financial situation and my mental health. While the individual agents I have spoken to on the phone have been kind, they have been able to offer absolutely no solutions and the company can not otherwise be contacted. 

Navient says that it will not accept payments from a checking account that is not a US bank account with a US routing number ( this includes not accepting a US currency account held with a XXXX bank ). I have tried to get a US bank account but can not as I do not have a permanent address in the US. Navient no longer accepts credit card payments, which it once did, but does accept debit card payments. I paid with my debit card several times successfully, but now the company 's technology consistently misreads my debit card as a credit card and refuses the payment made from it. I can not use the autopay or any other online option. Despite saying on its website that bank transfer is a method of international payment, I have been informed that only a small proportion of my loans can be made with bank transfer, which itself is complicated to organise each month. I have been told that I can pay with two separate money orders, but as this is an older method of payment they are timely and difficult to procure and would cost me {$100.00} not including postage each month to send. Two months ago, I opened a new banking account that specialises in multi-currency payments and which does have a routing number, but the associated card was also declined by the system as being a 'credit ' card. Navient told me to correct this with my bank, which I tried in person, but which was confused as it could simply tell me that the debit card is a debit card. On several occasions, agents have actually suggested to me that my repayments - which are due to continue for another 15 years at least ( I am XXXX ) - be handled by my elderly relatives in the US, who themselves would incur charges even if this monthly activity was feasible for them, which it is not. I have been told in broad terms that this is what everyone else does. This is a wholly inappropriate recommendation from a company of this size and financial power. I am willing to negotiate other payment arrangements, such as paying every six months or year to minimise the costs created by the unreasonable limitations on payment options and the company 's own technical limitations ( reading the debit cards as credit cards ).

I have spent enormous time and effort simply trying to get Navient to accept my monthly payment, which is now nearly three months overdue, and indicates no sign of being possible. Every time I call I spend a long time giving this information and the conversations end up futile. This is extremely stressful and is impacting negatively on my everyday life. The incurred late fees mean that I already can not meet the payments as I had been doing within my budget and will now struggle even more financially ; I have dependents and am the sole waged person supporting the family. I continue to receive emails about being 'late ', which do not take into account the number of times I have called to attempt to rectify the situation and find a way through. I recently took a forbearance ( incurring fees again ) simply to have a break from the stress of trying to pay. If the company refuses to accept payment via reasonable means from people who do not live in the US, I can not see how I will not be forced to default on this loan that I am willing and - for now - able to pay. I am sure that the company does not care in the slightest about the implications of this for my and my family 's life. However, I am lodging this complaint in the hope that someone will be required to attend to this problem seriously in the nearest future so that I repay this loan. 

This has been an ongoing struggle and set of conversations ; I would be happy to forward any documents that might be required in the conversation, although much of the conversation has been over the phone with agents and in a few emails that I have records of ( though I have just learned that Navient only stores the messages I send for 7 days, and theirs for 12 months ). I have attached one example of a response to my most recent ( XX/XX/2018 ) request for help from the company, in which I had explicitly stated that I did not have access to any US banking facilities.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation