Consumer complaint received 2020-01-09
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: NC
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Trouble with how payments are being handled

Complaint:
My husband is the co-signer on my daughter 's loans. We pay half of them, she pays the other half. For ten years, we have been fighting with Navient. They consistently misapply the payments. They then send the accounts to their debt collection department, even though they have received the payments. The debt collection people call and harass us, and follow up calls with nasty letters threatening legal action. This happens despite us taking their calls, and most importantly, despite the fact that they have been paid. We have been working with their Office of Consumer Advocacy literally for years on this issue. No resolution has happened. They have been told by my daughter not to call my husband. They do anyhow, and they do so without ever calling her. My husband received five calls this past Monday, and then we got three letters in the mail this week with threats. My daughter was never contacted. They received the payment they were demanding on XX/XX/XXXX, via auto bill pay from our bank. The supervisor I spoke with at Debt Collection, XXXX XXXX, employee ID # XXXX, told me that we have been sending our payment to the wrong account number. The account number we have been using was given to us by Navient. We had been working with a woman XXXX XXXX in the Office of Consumer Advocacy since XXXX. She suddenly disappeared from our case in XX/XX/XXXX, and our case was reassigned to a woman XXXX XXXX, employee ID # XXXX. She did not return calls or emails to my daughter in any kind of timely way, more often than not blowing her off altogether. I called yesterday, XXXX, and got her on the phone. I told her straight out I wanted the case reassigned. She resisted my request x 3. She claimed that because of their automated system, she could not do anything to keep the debt collection dept. from calling us, although she reported that she had gone into the account to reapply the payments correctly after they had yet again been misapplied. However, Ms. XXXX had somehow been able to keep the debt collection dept. from harassing us. She went in every month to fix what billing had done wrong, every month since XXXX. When Ms. XXXX agreed to reassign the case, I insisted on speaking to a supervisor to ensure that reassignment happened. I spoke with a man, XXXX or XXXX, employee ID # XXXX. He assured me that this reassignment would happen. Soon thereafter, my daughter was contacted by XXXX XXXX, who had disappeared from the case. She is now assuming the case again. I have spoken to her. I have changed the account number on my auto pay of this bill at my bank. Ms. XXXX says she is committed to resolving this problem. I have no faith that she can, although I do believe she will work hard to do so. Navient is crooked. I believe they are deliberately misapplying the payments in order to make money on late fees. Fees have been applied and then required removal by Ms. XXXX for years and years. If we were not jumping up and down screaming at Navient, they would have absolutely soaked us for these late fees by now. I suspect they are doing this to other consumers, and this bears looking at. This organization is inept, and/or corrupt. Their business practices are unethical and perhaps illegal. Their staff, for the most part, are either thieves or incredibly stupid. Please help us to get a resolution. We need an actual resolution to this problem. It has gone on for close to ten years, and happens every single month. My daughter has filed a similar complaint with your agency and filed two previous complaints about the same problem with your agency in XXXX, yet this remains unresolved. Thank you.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation