Consumer complaint received 2018-08-15
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:
I graduated from college in XX/XX/XXXX and, following my six month grace period, began repaying my Federal Stafford Loan on XX/XX/XXXX, in accordance with my repayment schedule, a copy of which can be provided. According to this schedule, my last payment was scheduled for XX/XX/XXXX. My loans were originally serviced by XXXX, who did an excellent job and with whom I was very happy. In XX/XX/XXXX, I received notice that my loans were moving to Navient and Navient began handling my repayment and my payments of {$85.00}, which were autopayments, continued uninterrupted. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I received my regular statement that my monthly payment had been processed in the amount of {$100.00}. I was confused as to why my payment had suddenly increased {$22.00} and why this increase had been made with no notice or explanation to me, so I called Navient and spoke to a representative. The representative explained that Navient planned for the increased payments to continue for a period of several months and would decrease the payments for the last 3-4 months of the repayment schedule, in order to make sure that I did not have an unexpectedly larger last payment. This did not make sense to me, as I told him and I asked him why Navient would not just double check the calculation and calculate how much I would have to pay for the remaining months to make the payments equal. He did this calculation and determined that I would repay the loan by paying {$68.00} each month for the remaining repayment period. At my direction, he changed my monthly payment to this calculated amount and assured me that it would not change again. Navient then continued processing my monthly payment of {$68.00}, until this month. 

Due to circumstances, I am currently on a very tight budget and, as part of this budget, have a notification on the bank account I use for bills notifying my when the balance drops below a certain threshold. I unexpectedly received that notification last night and, concerned, immediately checked the activity on the account, to find that Navient, instead of processing my regular payment of {$68.00}, had instead processed a payment of {$98.00}, an increase of {$29.00}, nearly a 50 % increase. Yet again, I had received no notice that this increase would be occurring. I checked my email account and spam folder and performed a search within my account for Navient. The only notifications I have received from Navient are, each month, a notification that my payment is about to be processed, but not the amount that will be processed, and, a couple of days later, a notification that the payment was processed and the amount that was paid. I have received no other notices or messages. 

I called Navient at XXXX EST today, XX/XX/XXXX, to determine why my payment amount had changed after I had been assured last year that it wouldn't and why I had received no notification. The representative to which I spoke placed me on hold for a long period of time, then returned and claimed ( 1 ) that notification had been sent to my house, did I not receive it? and ( 2 ) that the payment amount had changed because Navient had made a mistake in calculating that the repayment term would end XX/XX/XXXX, and that, according to my promissory note, the payment term should actually end in XX/XX/XXXX and, based on this corrected calculation, my monthly payment had changed to reflect the expected XX/XX/XXXX repayment. The representative also claimed that they could extend my repayment period to XX/XX/XXXX, I would just have to pay additional interest on the loan. After quizzing the representative, I ultimately decided I did not want to deal with the company and their repeated mistakes, and instructed the representative to leave the higher payment amount and I would figure something out. 

After thinking about the representative 's claims, it did not make sense to me. In particular, I could not figure out how XX/XX/XXXX would ever play into my repayment schedule. Stafford loans have a repayment period of 10 years, with an initial 6 month grace period for beginning payments. If the repayment period was calculated from my graduation date, the last payment would be made in XX/XX/XXXX. If the repayment period was calculated from the date I began payments, as it should be, the last payment would be made in XX/XX/XXXX. Nowhere does the month of XX/XX/XXXX play into it. So, I went to my paperwork file and found my initial repayment schedule sent to me by XXXX and dated XX/XX/XXXX. The schedule listed the five loans and the dates they were disbursed to me and listed the principal, projected interest, first payment date, dollar amount of ensuing payments, quantity of payments, and the last payment date. The last payment date is listed as XX/XX/XXXX, as I thought. 

I called Navient back at XXXX today, XX/XX/XXXX, demanding an explanation. The representative stated that, according to my account, I was correct that the last loan payment was expected to be made XX/XX/XXXX, but that due to the payment amount I was making, I would actually pay the loan off early, in XXXX. When informed that, as I had initially told her, I did not request the change to the higher payment that would result in the XXXX payoff date, and that the first customer service representative had told me I was supposed to pay the loan off by XXXX, the XXXX representative had no explanation. She also had no explanation as to why I did not receive notification from Navient that my monthly payment was changing. She has assured me that she has changed my payment amount to {$67.00} XXXX lower by a dollar because they processed an extra {$30.00} this month ) and my last payment would be XX/XX/XXXX. However, I have not yet received any paperwork to verify this. 

So, in summary, for the second time in a year, Navient has increased my monthly payment with not notification to me that they would be doing so, nor authorization by me to change the amount debited from my account. In addition, when called on for an explanation, Navient 's representative lied to me twice, ( XXXX ) that they had provided notification and ( XXXX ) on the reason for the changed. They lied and said that my payoff date, ACCORDING TO MY PROMISSORY NOTE, was XXXX MONTHS earlier than expected. Again, NAVIENT LIED TO ME ON THE PHONE ABOUT MY SCHEDULED LOAN PAYOFF DATE IN ORDER TO INCREASE MY MONTHLY LOAN PAYMENTS BY 50 %.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation