Consumer complaint received 2019-04-13
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: NY
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Trouble with how payments are being handled

Complaint:
This is a follow-up to a complaint previously submitted to the CFPB. This complaint is being submitted simultaneously to the CFPB and to the XXXX XXXX XXXX via XXXX. 

Navient 's response to my complaint is misleading and ignores critical facts, as set forth below. 

I submitted to Navient the request to enroll my new bank account in AutoPay on XX/XX/XXXX ( See Ex. D, attached ), confirmed by Navients XX/XX/XXXX email to me. ( This email serves as confirmation of your request to enroll the loans below in Auto Pay. ) My old bank account had been enrolled continually in AutoPay for more than sixteen years up to that date. Navient had ample time between XX/XX/XXXX, when I submitted this information, and XX/XX/XXXX, to finalize [ ] the enrollment. 

Indeed, as Navients XXXX email to me shows, this was Navients expectation, since that email explicitly stated that the Estimated Start Date for the new AutoPay arrangement was XXXXthe same day as the next payment due date. I reasonably relied on the representations in Navients XXXX XXXX email, and expected that the AutoPay payment would be made from the new account on XX/XX/XXXX. 

Navient says that it was unable to extract my XXXX. XXXX, XXXX payment from my new bank, but gives no excuse why this was so, twenty days after Navient acknowledges I had furnished it with the information necessary for it take the payment. 

Any consequence of Navients unexcused delay in setting up AutoPaya delay Navient never bothered to report to memust fall upon Navient. Put another way, Navients statement that the account must be current is misleading. If the account was not current, it was because of Navients failure to timely set up AutoPay for the new bank when it had been given 20 days to do so. ( My mortgage servicer, to give one example, was able to activate my autopay capability with the same new bank within 24 hours of my request. ) At no time did Navient advise me that there was any difficulty in setting up the new AutoPay arrangements. 

Accordingly, the putative Administrative Forebearance was unlawfully imposed. I do not owe it, nor do I owe any expenses that flow from it. The arguments that Navient makes in its response about capitalizing interest, since they ignore Navients own responsibility for the delay in setting up AutoPay, are irrelevant. 

It also follows from these facts that my account was never past due, as Navient asserts. 

Even if these facts were not dispositive ( they are ), Navient also assured me through its customer service representative, on a recorded line, that my XX/XX/XXXX payment would constitute timely payment for XXXX, and that my monthly payment going forward would be readjusted to the proper {$230.00}. Navients failure to honor this commitment would, on its own, constitute an unlawful unfair, deceptive, or abusive act under Sections 1031 and 1036 of the Dodd-Frank Act. I invite Navient to review the recording, and the law.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation