Consumer complaint received 2018-01-26
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: PA
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Trouble with how payments are being handled

Complaint:
I originally took out loans with the lender XXXX XXXX when I began college in XX/XX/XXXX/XX/XX/XXXX. Though payments on the loans would be deferred until I graduated I thought it wise to make voluntary payments on the interest that would accrue while I was in school. I agreed to this option only to deal with harassing calls about making these interest payments to myself and my Grandfather who was a co-signer of my loans. He and I both would get multiple calls a day regarding interest payments while I was in college that would wake him up and sometimes keep him up later into the night. This was only the beginning of my problems. 

Upon graduating college, I faced a number of difficulties including the XXXX of numerous family members including my Grandfather and co-signer of said loans, issues with credits/classes/educational matters before I could receive a diploma and begin looking for a job, as well as suffering from health complications due to XXXX XXXX. As payments on the principal balance of my loan began I was able to keep up with things, but as I started to struggle to make the high monthly payments this was expressed in a number of ways to service representatives from XXXX XXXX and Navient, who would eventually buy ( service ) my loans. 

If payments were late I would not only often deal with rude representatives that seemed to have a personal upset at me for my situation, but I would also receive what I would later find out to be inaccurate and incomplete information regarding the options I had for repayment of my loans. I expressed that the payments were rather high for what I could afford at the time ( I believe around {$900.00} in total ), given the job that I had and the money that I was able to save based on my other costs of living and expenses for medicine and such. Upon asking this question I was told numerous times that my best and really only option in this case was a forbearance. I began to know this word well. A quick $ XXXX-dollar payment that is not applied to any interest or principal amount but will bring my account " current '' and stop the harassing numerous calls a day to myself, my family, and even my place of work eventually. That's right, they even began calling my job. And still I asked, isn't there an income-based payment option yet was told that a forbearance was all I could really do at the moment. My records reflect I took this option numerous times, thinking it was all I could do. 

I reached the point of severe debt and marring of my credit and it seemed it was only at that juncture that someone with a higher authority from Navient contacted me and began discussing income-based repayment options. It seemed to be only due to the severity of my debt that they were contacting me as each representative before had explained that a forbearance was my only option. So, I explained to them what had happened, that I had faced numerous difficulties, was not receiving any workable options or help, and had basically had no choice but to make very small incremental payments on my loans when I could. I still needed to have money to buy food. At this point they agreed to schedule a review of both mine and my co-signers income and costs to determine a manageable payment plan. We did just this, very easily it seems this individual was able to take my multiple loans each with payments in the hundreds of dollars and interest rates often at 12 % down to a payment of just {$70.00} a month that would be Auto-Debited from my agreed bank account at a comparably very low interest rate of something like 3 %. I was shocked at how easy this was after dealing with such difficulty after months and months and being told that my only option was a forbearance for {$150.00} that basically went to what? The pockets of this company because it wasn't applied to even the interest that would accrue during that time of no payments let alone any principal amounts of loans. 

Naturally I took this option though, being vastly improved from what I was dealing with before. In this time I worked as often as I could, got my health in the best conditions possible, and dealt with things to the best of my ability. I faithfully made the payments I was responsible for and with the help of my additional co-signer on some of my other loans, my Father, I was able to budget my finances and manage my responsibilities as I worked to improve my situations. 

This seemed to be going well until only fairly recently ( ~XX/XX/XXXX ) when something changed. Payments started to fluctuate on when and if they would be drawn out and I was even credited money back at some point for a reason unbeknownst to me. My co-signers payments increased suddenly and though money for these payments remained in my account apparently Navient stopped drawing them out. This situation has just been raised to my attention and I've been trying to figure out the solution since then. 

Very recently as of the last few weeks of XX/XX/XXXX I've been attempting to sort this situation out. I have paper documentation that I keep but I also have used the web service to check records and make payments, but since I had been on an Auto-Debit program for so long I hadn't logged on to the website in some time and had forgotten my log in information. I called Navient 's service number to seek some help due to the online information retrieval failing to work for me in hopes that a service representative could steer me in the right direction of being able to log on to the website, view the status of all of my accounts in lieu of the confusion, and hopefully make a payment if necessary. 

My experience after this point was truly unbelievable. I went through the process of verifying my identity with the service representative and afterwards she asked if my calling had anything to do with the lateness of my payments. I responded that it did and that I wished to be able to find some help in fixing this situation by gaining access to my online account and going on later that night and making a payment after being able to view each loan 's status and what exact transactions had happened with them. 

She began asking many questions as to why I hadn't made payments and what was going on with me. The tone she had was already one of accusations and I answered her questions as accurately as possible and reiterated that my reason for calling was to find help in gaining access to my online account. She told me that I needed to set something up over the phone with her right then and there and discuss in further detail what my plan was because in her words " I had made an agreement and needed to be responsible for it ''. Naturally the feelings of irritation, accusation, and condescension don't put someone in a position to be openly communicative. I told her that I simply wished to gain access to my online account assuring her that I simply wanted to review what had occurred so I could better understand my loan status. 

She told me that because I receive paper documentation that I already have access to that information and became very forceful about setting up a payment right there on the phone. She told me it made no sense why I needed to see it online and accused me of having no intention to make any payment. Though this was extremely frustrating being told I could not access necessary information for my own accounts I tried to explain to this particular service representative that I did not have each of my paper documents in front of me, I wanted to see the current and accurate information that is reflected on the online account, and that it would make no sense for me to be calling and trying this hard if I my intentions were to simply hang up and do nothing. This seemed to really anger the representative though I was only being truthful and she told me again forcefully at this point, " Then I'm just going to have to write down that you refused to make a payment. '' Though shocked I tried to calmly ask if there was anything they could do about the online account and explain that I fully intended to make a payment right after I log on in only a few minutes. She seemed to begrudgingly say simply, " It's unlocked, go ahead, but I'm really going to have to write that you refused to make a payment, Goodbye Sir! '' All I could do was reiterate that I was going to log on to the account if it was indeed " unlocked '' and make a payment in a few minutes stressing that I did NOT refuse to make payments, I simply wanted to see that status of my account. 

I told her goodbye and though I was completely shaken by this event I suppose it isn't all that surprising. I had experienced this type of behavior many times throughout my interactions with student loan service representatives from XXXX XXXX and Navient both. It seems sometimes that there's no training or policy as to how these people are supposed to be interacting with their customers, they make you feel like dirt. 

And it would turn out that particular interaction was essentially in vain, because I still couldn't log on to my account. In disbelief that I was going to have to go through a similar painful process potentially with the same representative just to do something so basic as log on to my online account on Navient.com, I resolved myself to calling right back. This time I luckily received a different representative who seemed to be in a much better mood. I told her not only what difficulty I had with the previous representative and how rude they had been, but also simply that my interest was logging on to my account to sort out this strange issue that I was having. 

Again I was shocked at the subjective difficulty of this situation, very similar to how I felt before upon being told again and again that all I could do was make a forbearance payment to have in a matter of minutes this torturous situation be reduced to a small payment and very low interest. The reasonable and cordial representative simply helped me log on to my account properly, asked if there was anything else I would need help with that night, and simply wished me the best. I couldn't believe how hard I had struggled before to do what was so simply done in a few clicks. 

I've now been able to log on to my account, view my status, and I did indeed make a payment on my loans that night. Despite the assertions of that rude representative, that was absolutely my intention the whole time. I suppose it's no wonder why they are having such difficulty getting people 's payments on track if this is how they behave. It would seem though that my payment schedule has changed dramatically, the payments are back up into the hundreds and the interest rates are higher than they had originally been, some as high as 13 %. 

At this point I will likely have to begin the process of calling Navient to find out what had happened, why my Auto-debit payments stopped in which for a long time I had achieved a consecutive payment status, among a number of other serious concerns. My co-signers household has been receiving harassing calls again and when I do try to call and find information, I'm faced with extreme rudeness and given very little help. 

My experiences with XXXX XXXX and Navient have been completely horrendous. I've dealt with rude representatives, harassing calls at all hours of the day despite multiple requests for them to stop, withholding of important loan information, inaccurate reporting and communication of loan repayment options, and now a refusal to give necessary account information needed to view account status and make payments. In my Grandfather 's last few years of life he was harassed by these people, my health and ability to afford food and medicine has been dramatically affected which in turn has seriously impacted my ability to seek and gain employment, and this all has put such a stress on the relations between myself and my co-signers, my Grandfather who has now XXXX and my Father, that there is now much bitterness between us because of all of this. Many times I've wished I never even went to college because then I wouldn't have had to struggle with all this debt like this. 

I'm one of the many people in America right now who are facing these sorts of problems. Actually, if I was alone in this I would have chocked it up to my own failings and never spent the time in writing this long letter, but it's because I've heard and seen so so many others with very similar stories that I find it not only necessary but my civic duty to inform those who may be uninformed about the nature of what has happened with Student Loans in America. We've been made well-aware what a challenging situation the " bubble '' of Student Loan debt is. It's situations in which I've described to you here that highlight how this bubble is given additional pressure, making it harder for struggling Americans to make payments who just wanted to get an education and better themselves in the first place. Let us not allow situations like this to first ruin individuals, then ruin communities. I'm sure it is no surprise to anyone involved in government to hear, but hear it now from a citizen, a constituent, an American. This needs to be looked at seriously because the stake of our economic future is at hand. 

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, I truly appreciate it. Have a wonderful day!

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation