Consumer complaint received 2023-11-17
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: NC
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan
Sub-issue: Problem with forgiveness, cancellation, or discharge

Complaint:
I am asking for help. I took out Federal loans back in the XXXX 's so I could go to college. I had to given my Dad at the time was in a XXXX Home because of XXXX XXXX. Fast forward, in those days, I took out the XXXX that I could in student loans to get through 4 years of college. I regret that now. Fast forward again, once I got out of school all I could get for work was a basic customer service job with a bank. The monthly student loan payments around that time in the late XXXX 's were too much for me so I called XXXX ( servicer at that time ) for help. They offered the forbearance program which was so easy to enter into. There lies the problem. A basic customer service representative at that time who knew nothing about finances and explained nothing about repercussions for continuous forebearance over a number of years, with a simple click of a button, changed my financial situation forever. Fast forward again, as a young adult out of college I continued to barely make ends meat as a customer service rep. Over the course of 6 years as a basic customer service rep., not knowing the true long term consequences of a long term forebearance plan, my principal student loan balance blew up from $ XXXX to over $ XXXX. That was back in XXXX or XXXX. Ever since, I've been trying to keep up with the payments but for many many years all my monthly payments have done is pay off the accrued interest each month. My loans were moved over to Navient back in XXXX and they operate the same as XXXX. There is little or no understanding of my situation by them. All they offer are income based repayment plans at this point and that offers very little relief because all my monthly payment is doing is paying the accured interest each month. My monthly minimum payment based upon my income the last 2 years or so has been around {$450.00} and again all that payment is does is pretty much pay the loan accrued interest each month. I am crying out for help! I have paid XXXX and Navient thousands and thousands of dollars over the years in trying to keep up with student loan payments and it seems that all Navient wants to do is bury me financially. I still can't believe that it's been almost 25 years since I graduated college and my student balance is pretty close to the student balance I had back in XXXX after my forebearance period ended! How these student loan service providers aren't legally required to cap accrued interest on student loans at some point is absolutely mind boggling! I am now XXXX XXXX XXXX with a XXXX XXXX XXXX son and still making student loan payments that just cover my monthly accrued interest. I don't want to be a grandfather still making student loan payments in my XXXX 's or XXXX 's. Again, I have paid back thousands and thousands of dollars over the last 25 years. Navient will not listen and I am putting in a formal complaint that their business practices are corrupt.Please help!

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation