Consumer complaint received 2018-12-17
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: NY
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Private student loan
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan
Sub-issue: Problem lowering your monthly payments

Complaint:
On XX/XX/18 called Navient to attempt to reduce my monthly payment. My usual monthly payment was about {$320.00} a month. I could no longer afford to pay it so I called to lower the payment. When I called there are two different Navients. There is the Navient that handles account information and the Navient that handles the transactions. No matter what the call is about the 1st Navient always has to transfer to a second Navient to handle any transaction, which the first Navient is always unaware of, or can't see any of the information the 2nd Navient does.

So I proceed to speak to a representative from the 1st Navient. After requesting to lower the payment, they transfer me to the 2nd Navient. The 2nd Navient representative goes through the financial process and they were able to reduce the payment to {$220.00} per month for 9 months on automatic payments. I asked if they could lower it to {$200.00}. The representative said no, that's the lowest they could go. I continued to ask about if I made a monthly payment a few days earlier than the due date would that settle the payment for that month. The representative told me no, it would be added towards the principal balance. ( The is the first time I have ever heard of a company that sets up automatic payments and does not allow a customer to pay early and still initiate an automatic payment for that same period. ) Ok so I rolled with it and the payment plan was processed. I finished with the representative and was waiting for my confirmation. The 2nd Navient representative said he was emailing the confirmation. I waited about 10 minutes and the representative said that I should receive an email in a few minutes and he got me off the phone. I waited and nothing came. I waited 24 hrs and called back on XX/XX/18.

I called back the 1st Navient requesting the confirmation to the payment plan and again was transferred to the 2nd Navient. The 1st Navient had no idea what I was talking about and had no information on the transaction. After being connected to the 2nd Navient I was shocked. The 2nd Navient representative told me I wasn't approved. I asked how could that be when 24hrs before I was approved by the same 2nd Navient. They said I wasn't approved based on my credit. I was never made aware that there was a credit check involved. There was no indication by the previous representative on the XX/XX/XXXX, that there was a credit check, nor did I approve Navient to run my credit for this process. 

So the representative proceeded to tell me that they were sorry and I had to pay the entire balance for that month. ( $ XXXX+ ) I told them I couldn't afford it and would not be able to make the payment. They said I could afford. After pleading, the 2nd Navient representative told me that they could lower the monthly payment to {$200.00} only if I would extend my loan for 8 years at % 4 interest. In was furious. Extending the loan 8yrs at 4 % interest would add about a third of the loan on top of what I owe. When I asked the previous call to pay {$200.00}, I was told no. Now that they figured a way to entrap me, they expect me to agree to the worst terms.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation