Consumer complaint received 2019-12-08
Company: SUNTRUST BANKS, INC.
State: UT
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Private student loan
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan
Sub-issue: Can't get other flexible options for repaying your loan

Complaint:
I originally took out this student loan in XXXX as a Federal Student Loan to pay for college. The loan was made under SunTrust Bank. My parents agreed to make the payments on this loan after I graduated. At that time I was not financially responsible so I relied on my parents to make the payments on the loan. All of the statements were mailed to my parent 's mailing addresses, so I was unaware they had defaulted on the loan. My parents defaulted on the loan twice and added {$10000.00} to the principal balance of the loan in default interest and late fees. I was in my early twenties at the time I took out the Federal student loan and simply was not financial responsible. Now that I'm in my forties I am financially responsible. I hired a student loan attorney that advised me to pay off the loan as quickly as possible by making principal reduction payments. I'm now attempting to pay the student loan off as quick as possible by making monthly principal reduction payments on the loan. For several months I have made 2 payments every month, in the month that the payment was due, in an effort to make a payment every month toward the loan principal balance. In this way, I am trying to reduce the principal balance of my student loan. For example, one payment was the regular monthly payment, and the second payment I paid in that month was intended to go towards principal reduction. ( I want to make principal payments to pay the loan off quicker and reduce the amount of interest I pay on the student loan ). After several months of making two payments per month, I noticed that the principal balance of the loan was not being reduced. I contacted the loan servicer for SunTrust Bank in XX/XX/XXXX. The loan servicer is XXXX and the lender is " XXXX  XXXX. '' I asked them why the additional monthly payments were not being applied towards the principal balance of the loan. The loan servicer XXXX told me that, under my student loan with SunTrust Bank, I am unable to make principal payments to reduce the debt. I then asked the representative at XXXX if it is possible to arrange a loan modification with SunTrust Bank that would allow me to make principal reduction payments. The representative told me that this is not possible and no loan modification would be possible on this loan. In other words, this loan with SunTrust is designed so that I can not pay my debt down faster by making an additional payments toward the principal every month. For all of the additional payments I've made over the past several months, the loan servicer sent me a notice to say, " no payment is due at this time. '' The basis of my complaint is that this student loan by SunTrust is unethical and is designed to force a borrower to keep this loan for the entire term so the lender can make triple the principal balance of the loan in interest payments. This type of student loan from SunTrust should be illegal. Why should SunTrust be allowed to provide student loans where students can not have the option of making principal reduction payments to reduce the amount of interest they are paying on these loans? I would like you to investigate this loan with SunTrust Bank because I know there are probably millions of other students out there with this same type of loan. Most of them probably can only make the min monthly payment on the loan, and are not able to make principal reduction payments, so they are likely unaware of this provision in the loan. In trying to make principal reduction payments myself over the past several months, I have personally discovered that this student loan from SunTrust has a provision that doesn't allow principal reduction payments. For this reason I'm filing this complaint because I feel this is unethical of SunTrust bank and I should be allowed to make principal reduction payments like I am able to do on my mortgage loan. If it's now illegal for a bank to make a qualified mortgage and not allow principal reduction payments, then why is SunTrust bank allowed to make a student loan that doesn't allow principal reduction payments? My loan with SunTrust Bank does not allow principal reduction payments and this is something that needs to be investigated by the CFPB because it's downright harmful to the consumer. I am glad to know there is a resource like this out there for me to seek some form of help. Thank you in advance for what you do to help consumers!

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief