Consumer complaint received 2017-04-09
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: NY
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with my lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Trouble with how payments are handled

Complaint:
My grievance with both " Sallie Mae '' and " XXXX '' involves a procedure/practice of the company ( XXXX ) more so than a one-time occurrence. 

I frequently make additional payments towards my Sallie Mae/XXXX student loans and have been doing so for over 5 years now. When making my additional payments, I focus on one specific loan, ( referred to herein as my " targeted loan '' ), at a time so that the targeted loan can be paid off and thereby eliminate the mandatory monthly payment from my expenses. 

The issue with SallieMae/XXXX is that when I 've attempted to make additional payments on one targeted loan, if the payment for your " Loan Group '' is due, both the Sallie Mae and XXXX websites will require you to make the payment on your " Loan Group '' due before allowing you to pay an additional payment on a specific/targeted loan. 

The problem I have with this is that the " Loan Group '' becomes due usually around 30 days prior to the date the payment is actually due by, thereby disenabling myself ( and others ) from being able to pay extra towards a targeted loan unless I pay my " Loan Group '' due amount early. 

So for example, say I want to pay an additional {$50.00} towards my Loan 1-10 on XX/XX/2017, but my Loan Group payment is showing as due by XX/XX/2017 and requires that I pay {$250.00}. I am unable to pay the additional {$50.00} towards my targeted loan until I 've paid the Loan Group, even though the loan group is n't actually due for 24 days! 

Being paid bi-weekly, if I wanted to make this extra payment towards my targeted loan and thus by doing so be forced pay my " Loan Group '' at times over 20 days in advance of the due date, it would have detrimental impact on my budget. If Sallie Mae/XXXX would have allowed me to make the additional {$50.00} payment at the time I so chose to ( without the required Loan Group payment being a mandated prerequisite ), I could have saved money in the amount of interest I am being charged on a per diem basis on my targeted loan and would have been able to pay my targeted loan off much earlier the burden to pay my Loan Group early would not have prevented my additional payments on my targeted loan. 

I think this practice is very unfair to the consumer and if it had been disallowed years ago could have saved me a great deal of stress from the burden of financial hardship I was faced with in repaying my student loans, and I 'm sure many others like me. 

I 've noticed this practice with Sallie Mae/XXXX on its servicing of Private/High interest rate loans, Department of Education Loans, and Federal Loans ( subsidized and non-subsidized ). 

Having begun my post-college student loan repayment with over 12 different student loans, the vast majority of which serviced by Sallie Mae and subsequently XXXX, I have become familiarized with this occurrence that I feel is greatly unfair to borrowers, although the impact on an individual person may not be immediately devastating, but the practice is unfairly benefiting the lender at the expense of the borrower. I feel very strongly that the practice should be eliminated and those impacted shown some form of compensation for the unnecessary prolonging of their indebtedness to Sallie Mae/XXXX.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation