Consumer complaint received 2021-07-20
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: LA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account status incorrect

Complaint:
Due to a misunderstanding regarding the CARES Act, I was unaware that my federal student loans were not included and therefore did not make payments on them from XX/XX/2020-XX/XX/2020. 

On the last day of each of these months, my student loan serviced, Navient, submitted inaccurate/incomplete information to the CRAs by continuing to report each of my four loans as current and with no past due balance indicated although they were actually 30 delinquent in XX/XX/2020 and 60 days delinquent in XX/XX/2020. 

This inaccurate reporting mislead me to believe that my loan payments were indeed suspended as per the CARES Act. As a result, I continued to skip my monthly payments until receiving a notification in XX/XX/2020 from the CRAs indicating that each of my four Navient accounts were being reported as being at least 90 days delinquent. 

I immediately contacted Navient and submitted complete payment including interest and late fees. I also requested that the negative reporting on these accounts be removed due to Navients previous failure to comply with the FCRA and their obligation to report accurate, up to date, and complete information ( including delinquent account statuses ) each time information is furnished to a CRAs. 

I was informed by Navient that my request was denied due to the FCRA did not allow them to make such an adjustment because the accounts were indeed 90 days delinquent. 

I explained to multiple representatives that Navients direct violation and failure to comply with the provisions of the FCRA in the preceding months were unlaw and misleading to me as a consumer and that had Navient complied with their credit reporting obligations, I could have taken care of the situation in XX/XX/2020 when the loans were only 30 days delinquent. 

Navients intentional withholding/misreporting of the status of each of my accounts caused a much more significant and unnecessary impact on my credit profile. 

Navient dismissed my inquiries regarding the inaccurate reportings prior to XX/XX/2020 and informed me that Navients policy is to not report delinquencies until 90 days. I requested a copy of this policy ( as The Furnishers Rule requires that written policies regarding credit reporting practices be maintained. ) I was told that a copy was not available online and that I would receive a written copy by mail, which I never did. I did, however, later receive and email instructing me to refer to the Department of Educations Common Manual as Navients reporting practices align with the referenced publication.

Upon referencing the Common Manual, I discovered the following : *The guidelines published are merely recommendations by the Department of Education , and not a written policy maintained by Navient as I had requested. 

*The manual clearly states that information reported by lenders, including repayment statuses of loans, is NOT to affect the provisions of the FCRA. 

*Lenders are only required to provide information to the CRAs quarterly and are ENCOURAGED to wait until a borrower is at least 60 days delinquent before reporting the delinquency. 

Therefore, Navient is not required to provide monthly reportings to the CRAs as they do, but they ARE still obligated to comply with the provisions of the FCRA when they do provide information to the CRAs.

Navient is also not REQUIRED to wait until loans are at least 60days before disclosing the delinquent status of a loan as they informed me that they were. 

If Navient wished to wait until my accounts were at least 60 days delinquent as recommended by the Department of Education, then they should not have continued to submit monthly reportings to the CRAs regarding my accounts. Instead, they should have chosen to not provide reportings until XX/XX/2020. 

Once again, the fraudulent reportings made in XX/XX/2020 and XX/XX/2020 caused unnecessary confusion as well as unfair and significant damage to my credit profile. As you are aware, this damage will affect my credit worthiness to lenders for the next 7 years and can cause me extreme financial hardship. 

I have submitted multiple complaints to Navient as well as disputes to the CRAs regarding this matter, but they have all fallen upon deaf ears and the negative reportings remain in place. I beg of your assistance with resolving this matter. 

Lenders such as Navient need to recognize the importance of their responsibilities to provide accurate information to CRAs ( even if the information is negative ) and to maintain clear reporting policies/practices to prevent future unnecessary harm to the credit profiles of consumers such as myself. 

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation