Consumer complaint received 2019-05-21
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: WA
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:
In XX/XX/XXXX I applied for an income based repayment program and was approved with a payment of {$0.00}. I have an email from Navient on the date I was approved saying this. I have an email they sent me at the end of the repayment period ( XX/XX/XXXX ) to inform me of what the new payment will be. 

Navient did not honor the repayment agreement I was approved for, which is a breach of contract, and instead reported my 10 individual loans as late every month to the 3 major credit bureaus. They say that they have no record of my IBR application but I have confirmation of them approving me. They can't even tell WHAT they approved me for as half of the emails from Navient refer to my IBR and half of them reference either a deferment or a forbearance. Regardless, something messed up and I'm now paying the consequences despite my documentation. 

My loans were defaulted, then closed and XXXX opened 10 new loans for collection purposes. This means I have 20 severely derogatory loans reporting on my credit reports. Additionally, Navient and/or XXXX informed the Dept. of Ed of my default and my tax return for tax year XXXX was offset and applied to my loans. However, my loans were not late. The payment owed was {$0.00}. 

I have been trying to resolve this issue and have worked patiently with XXXX from Navient 's Borrower 's Advocate office. She is extremely nice and seems as though she wants to help me. However it has been approximately a month since I began working with her and although she has acknowledged that " so much has gone wrong '' with my account, and that this isn't my fault, I feel as if I'm being strung along. XXXX said that she was investigating to see if the issue ( that studentloans.gov apparently didn't forward Navient my IBR application ) impacted other people as well, but truth be told, that is not my concern. I need my issue resolved so that I can fix my severely damaged credit. 

Navient is being willfully negligent in their duties to help me resolve this. One example : I sent Navient all of my documentation supporting my position ( 34 pages, which I am attaching to this complaint as well ) and in response, they sent me a letter saying my dispute was considered frivolous because I didn't supply any supporting documentation. Another example : I can not access any documents in my online portal that are over 12 months old. I requested a copy of all correspondence between Navient and I from XX/XX/XXXX through the current date in order to help me understand where things went wrong with my account. Instead of complying with my request ( which they offer to me on their website ), they sent me two copies of the 34 pages I sent them, a few random billing statements, and a letter telling me how to change my name. 

Speaking of my name, another issue that went wrong with my account and likely contributed to this mess is that Navient has made up a new last name for me by combining parts of my maiden and married names, which actually resulted in me not receiving mail from them because my postal carrier put a note on my mailbox door saying only deliver mail for my married name. This is not my fault. I sent Navient a copy of my marriage certificate, my DL, and my SSN card a few years ago with a request to change my name and they did not do that. 

Despite impressing on Navient and XXXX how important it is that they fix my credit, in response to my disputes filed with the 3 credit bureaus, Navient and XXXX reported additional false information and further damaged my credit scores. Example : Navient updated the date on my loans to current, instead of leaving the date of last activity as the date they closed the accounts back in XX/XX/XXXX. This caused these to look like brand new charge offs and my score decreased. 

For their part, XXXX updated their trade lines to list a new open date of XX/XX/XXXX, making it look like I was in collections for an entire year longer than I have been. This resulted in a year worth of double reporting of derogatory payments that were never even late to begin with. All XXXX has done to be of assistance ( including ignoring a referral of my case to them from the Student Loan Ombudsman Group at the Dept. of Ed ) is  to send me a form to try and argue for my tax refund to be returned to me due to a financial hardship. I have not filled this out because it does not address the actual reason why I need my refund back which is that I was not in default. 

Navient and XXXX have each caused me exceptional harm by furnishing false information to my credit reports. Over the course of time that this has taken place I have well over 100 90-180 day late payments on my credit report, in addition to 10 loans in collections. This has depressed my FICO scores down below 600, has caused me to be denied credit, has increased my cost of car in insurance, and has made it impossible for me to move this summer.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation