Consumer complaint received 2022-04-01
Company: Maximus Education, LLC dba Aidvantage
State: IN
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:
Please Help! .... " Suspicious Student Loan Activity '' with Aidvantage Company ( formerly known as Navient ) .... 

Good Evening, I just got off of a phone call ( XX/XX/2022 ) with Aidvantage ( formerly known as Navient : the student loan company that's been in news headlines and attached to lawsuits ). 

There is " suspicious activity '' going on which made me uncomfortable on a phone call I had this morning with Aidvantage that took 1 hour for them to process my payment for my student loan. I was given false information as to why my payment was not being processed correctly. 

Since XX/XX/XXXX, I have made 3 consistent payments of {$500.00} ( specifically toward my lowest student loan balance which I have set up on their website in my " Payment Directions ''. Any overpayment of mine is supposed to go to the lowest student loan balance every time as it has been for the past 2 months which is also known as the principle ) to Aidvantage on the following dates : XX/XX/2022 {$500.00} XX/XX/2022 {$500.00} XX/XX/2022 {$570.00} I have 2 consolidated loans. The lowest loan right now is at {$2900.00}. The highest loan right now is at about {$7000.00}. Normally when I go on the website and pay my loan of {$500.00} or above, that full amount goes only to the lowest loan, leaving the second loan at {$0.00}. 

This morning when I went to run the same process I've been running for the past 3 payments, it now split up my loan to {$400.00} and some change on the lower loan and 70 some dollars and some change on the higher loan. I called in and asked why is this doing it this way all of a sudden after trying multiple attempts at directing the full amount towards the lowest student loan. The representative named XXXX told me she did not know why it was doing this because she also tried it on her end as well. She then reached out to her supervisor XXXX who told her it shouldn't be doing that and that XXXX & I should try it again and put in the exact amount which we had already done multiple times and also after XXXX instructed us to. Still nothing was happening and then out of nowhere XXXX tells her it's only doing it because the person owes {$3.00} interest. If he makes a payment of {$3.00} interest, it will stop doing it. 

I told her that that is 'confusing ' and it 'makes no sense ' at all because I was never notified through email or any other medium of me owing {$3.00} on any interest which would affect my payment or even as an update so that I am aware of the {$3.00} interest. 

So, just to see if the information was valid, I entered the amount of {$500.00} ( which would include this so-called interest that she is mentioning out of nowhere that I was never notified about ) on my lowest student loan on the website to see if that made any change. It did not. That let me know she was trying to blow me off, get me off the phone and lie to me. I expressed to XXXX that I feel like XXXX is trying to give me any type of false information to get me off of the phone so she can go on with her day which makes me uncomfortable and shows me that some suspicious activity is taking place. I insisted that I want an answer to why this is taking place because it makes me feel uncomfortable with what's happening with my money. I told her that the story is not adding up and I would like to now speak with the supervisor. 

Once I said that, she told me that XXXX is now speaking with a person named XXXX who is looking into the problem. While this conversation is taking place, time is being dragged out and I have now been on the phone with these three other individuals for an hour trying to process a simple {$500.00} payment to my lowest student loan balance. I now am told that XXXX says that the website was changed to reflect that from now on when a payment is made they're going to split the amount among multiple loans that a person has with Aidvantage. I said that I was not notified of this and I asked XXXX to explain to me how it was changed and her response was " an overpayment deals with XXXX student loan not XXXX student loans '', and then she proceeded to try to give me an illustration of having a loan for a few hundred dollars and if I had more than those a few hundred dollars that amount would go to that loan. I interrupted her and expressed to her that that information does not add up and I specifically read the payment directions as well as the option underpayment directions that I selected, which the website gives me as an option and that it explains that an overpayment is dealing with multiple loans, not 1 single loan. She responded with a simple yes and continue to explain that she would go ahead and document this in my file. The reasoning she tried to give me with that illustration made no sense and didn't line up with the websites payment directions and she could now see that I wasn't going for the story she was trying to give me. 

I expressed to XXXX who was communicating with these two women that none of this was reflected in any email. I was not notified through paper mail or email of such changes made on the website ( any type of updated information that I'm supposed to get I have received either from Navient in the past or Aidvantage but all of a sudden I didn't receive anything of this new information they were trying to feed me ) and it sounds like they were making information up as the call kept going. XXXX was explaining to me that she was confused and dumbfounded by the information they were giving her because she can see in the system that my payments have been consistent and there has been no issue until today, XX/XX/2022. She said the same thing I said which was " What changed from XX/XX/XXXX until today that I can not make and process the payment the way I've been processing it? '' She told me that it does not make sense to her. 

She kept waiting for responses on their end and as time kept dragging out finally XXXX tells XXXX to have me send the payment in and even though the website reflects that it will be split up, XXXX is instructed to send an email to the corporate office stating that even though the payment is being split up, the 70 some dollars that was sent to the higher student loan needs to be transferred back to the lower student loan this 1 time. After today, it will no longer take overpayment amounts and have them specifically sent/designated to the 1 lowest student loan balance. I told her that this is EXTREMELY ODD and SUSPICIOUS because why would the website require us to set up our " overpayment '' and where it is supposed to go in " Payment Directions '' if they are going to completely disregard it and split up the payments anyway. She said she has no idea. 

I then said, " XXXX, this is not your fault so please don't take any offense to what I'm about to ask you and what I am expressing on this phone call but from the information your supervisors are giving me, can you understand how this makes me 'cautious ' and 'uncomfortable ' from the information I've been given because in the beginning they did not want to receive my full payment to the lowest student loan balance because XXXX decided to tell me it's because I owe {$3.00} on interest and once that interest is paid, it will go back to my regular routine of paying the student loan 's lowest balance, but then all of a sudden XXXX decides to give me a different narrative stating that the website has changed and we can no longer designate our overpayment towards the lowest student loan balance and that it has to be split up from this point on??? Furthermore, this doesn't make any sense to me because if XXXX is going to say that, why does the website require us to fill out the option under " Payment Directions '' reflecting where we would want our " overpayment '' to go in which it states it will go to the lowest student loan balance. XXXX, can you understand how this would make me 'suspicious ' about what your company is doing and 'cautious ' and 'uncomfortable ' about what they're telling me if you were in my position? '' She replied, " I can understand that. '' She told me that she would document this conversation in her system as well as send the email off to the corporate office so that my amount was paid in full only to the lowest student loan balance. She said that once this process has taken place, my payments would have to be split up from this point on. 

With all of the corruption taking place with these student loan companies and different lawsuits and suspicious activity taking place, I don't trust the way they handled my call and the way they are handling my account. 

Can you please help me with this and are you able to look into any suspicious activity that may have been involved with my case? ... because I was lied to and given a false narrative with false information concerning my account and what was going on with my payment. I'm doing all that I can to be responsible with my student loan and rid myself of this debt. I don't want to be abused and robbed of any money by Aidvantage in the process. 

P.S. I also forgot to mention that in response to me having this issue and asking her why are they splitting up my payments XXXX at one point told me that she could put my account on forbearance. In which I replied " What does that have to do with anything I'm talking about and why are you recommending that? '' She replied " Yeah, I don't know let me see what my boss is sending me .... '' and completely change the subject out of nowhere which was extremely odd. 

Thank you for your time and your service.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation