Consumer complaint received 2019-11-04
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: MN
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Received bad information about your loan

Complaint:
Back in XXXX, my wife and I were expecting our XXXX XXXX and we moved from XXXX  to XXXX  back in XX/XX/XXXX to prepare for the baby. XXXX was a tough year financially, I was paying extensive medical bills for 5  XXXX XXXX  from XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX, and my wife was not working because she was XXXX. She was a XXXX XXXX but decided to XXXX  full time, so she was not getting paid for maternity leave. 

I had just completed XXXX  school, so I knew I had to start paying back my student loans asap. A friend of mine told me about this company called XXXX XXXX  XXXX. His wife was a XXXX   as well and told us that they found a company that was able to get their monthly payments down due to financial hardships. 

They entered a Student Loan Forgiveness Program, where if you owe $ XXXX or more in federal student loans, the DOE  and Federal Govt have income based benefit programs where a large sum of our debt would be forgiven. The number I was given to call was XXXX XXXX @ XXXX. I was skeptical of the whole thing so did some online research and also had friends using them so I thought they were legitimate. 

XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX I called XXXX that month ( roughly XXXX of XXXX ) to see if my wife and I could get approved. We mentioned to them that my wife and I were dealing with minimal income, paying off medical bills and preparing for our child, and noted that we could not exceed {$200.00} per month on student loan payments. My agent assigned to my account was XXXX XXXX, and I had to give her all of my information including monthly income, household size, etc. I was advised that I was approved to pay $ XXXX/mo for 240  months. As long as I make all my payments in the 240 months, the remainder of my debt would be forgiven. I received an email from XXXX  XXXX  XXXX  on XX/XX/XXXX that I have completed my consolidation and my new servicer was Navient.The catch was we had to pay XXXX XXXX XXXX a monthly fee for using their services, where they explained it was to ensure we kept the lowest monthly payments each year. I was under the impression that as long as I pay $ XXXX/mo to Navient for 240 months, the remainder of my debt would be forgiven. In the meantime, I had to pay several months of installment fees to XXXX  XXXX XXXX, as well as {$40.00} a month until the contract was up. 

Fast forward a year, I was contacted by XXXX XXXX XXXX to renew my financials for next years monthly payments. I submitted all of my documents to them on time and noticed on Navient.com that my monthly payments went from $ XXXX/mo to over {$1200.00} per month! Obviously I could not afford this, and called Navient immediately. They explained this is because I have not renewed my contract, once I did, they estimated my payments could be anywhere from $ XXXX {$800.00} per month. Given the fact that nothing had changed on my end financiually, I was shocked to learn that my payments would go up by over {$1000.00} per month. I asked the Naivent rep to tell me what my previous application listed, since payments were so low last year. She said that I listed I was single, lived in XXXX  and made only $ XXXX per year with 5 dependents. No wonder why my payments were so low XXXX XXXX XXXX must have falsified my records, in order to get me to do business with them and continue to pay them. 

I have been called XXXX XXXX  XXXX and emailing them for months, now their phone number says the following : " The operations of this business have been temporary suspended. On XX/XX/XXXX the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and state of MN filed a complaint and the US District Court issued a temporary restraining order. '' The receiver gave a website to find periodic updates on the matter, which is XXXX. 

The only reason I worked with them was because they found me a way to pay under {$200.00} per month, and also with the agreement that after 240 months of paying this amount, the remainder of my debt would be forgiven. Now, after 1 yr of paying both XXXX XXXX   XXXX and Navient, my total debt owed has gone up several thousand dollars! How can that be?? I made an agreement to pay a certain amount of money with the collective understanding the remainder of the debt would be forgiven. This is all showing to be false and now I have to file for forbearance in order to get this back under control. My wife and I both have lost a lot of money and now are in danger being that neither of us can afford what Navient is asking from us monthly.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation