Consumer complaint received 2021-12-13
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: NY
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Received bad information about your loan

Complaint:
Navient is sending me emails demanding payments on federal direct loans during the COVID payment pause. 

The first email came on XXXX XXXX, XXXX. It said " XXXX, you have loans entering repayment soon '' and demanded a payment of {$120.00} with a due date of XX/XX/XXXX. 

I received a second identical email on XXXX XXXX, XXXX again demanding a payment of {$120.00} with a due date of XX/XX/XXXX. 

It can be extremely confusing when borrowers receive notifications from student loan servicers like Navient because roughly half of the notifications include information that is false, misleading or an error and when I call Navient about it I'm told to just ignore it. This makes it impossible to tell what information Navient is sending me is correct and requires me to take specific actions that my financial life depends on. Everything ends up being a guessing game and a hall of mirrors. 

On XXXX XXXX, XXXX I got a deeply concerning email from Navient saying that somebody had changed my mailing address on XX/XX/XXXX. I did not do this, and the message said " If you didn't request this change, please contact us immediately at XXXX as it could indicate attempted identity theft or other suspicious activity. '' I did call them immediately because I was deeply concerned about this, however, because Navient sent this email to me at XXXX p.m. ET their offices were already closed that day. 

I called Navient at XXXX a.m. ET on XXXX XXXX, XXXX and spoke to a representative named XXXX XXXX whose employee ID number is XXXX. XXXX XXXX confirmed that my mailing address was correct, it was exactly the same has it was before and it seems like it was not changed at all which is good news. XXXX XXXX told me that sometimes this happens by error if a representative at Navient accidentally or out of habit clicks a box that signals there was an address update. 

I also took this opportunity to ask XXXX XXXX about the other emails Navient has been sending me demanding payment on a federal direct loan in violation of the payment pause. She said that they have been getting many phone calls about this issue from other borrowers. She said this was a problem " because of the fork '' ( I don't know what this means ). She says that Navient had automated these messages before the payment pause got extended and that they have been unable to turn these automated messages off. I asked XXXX XXXX how many other borrowers got messages like this. She said she did not know, but confirmed it has happened to many other borrowers. Did it happen to all accounts that Navient services? 

I explained my distress that it is impossible to know what information Navient sends me is accurate and what is false. I asked when Navient was going to send me the correct information about when payments would resume. XXXX XXXX insisted that Navient had already done that, and I had to insist that they never did. 

I also expressed my distress about the upcoming servicer transfer to XXXX. During past servicer transfers the CFPB has documented that one out of every five accounts has had errors as a result of the transfer. I had hoped to avoid the servicer transfer. Since Navient services some of my federal direct loans and XXXX XXXX services another portion of my federal direct loans I had hoped to avoid the servicer transfer by consolidating all of my loans had choosing XXXX XXXX as my servicer. XXXX XXXX told me that this should be possibile, however I had previously tried to consolidate these loans and XXXX XXXX sent me a notification saying they had cancelled the consolidation based on a technicality. So it seems like there is no way for me to avoid this servicer transfer. I requested account information to be mailed to me by Navient multiple times. It has not yet arrived although XXXX XXXX insisted it was on its way.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation