Consumer complaint received 2017-11-07
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: NC
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:
For the past two years I 've been trying to pay a little bit on my loans with Navient every month to keep the interest at bay ( even though I was still in school ). It was more or less working ( with period problems with money going to the wrong loans or not being able to specify the amounts ), but about a year and a half ago they " changed '' their system, so you ca n't specify amounts or which loans they go to and it was IMPOSSIBLE to make payments while they were in deferment. This was more annoying than anything for my subsidized loans, but for my one unsubsidized loan, which had almost DOUBLED, it was a BIG problem : one that I wanted to tackle while I was still in school. I simply could not pay this loan with their online payment system. Each month, I would call and have to get customer support to " update '' the system so I can specify how much and to which loans. Each month, they tell me that they are " going to fix the technical error '' and that it " will never happen again '' - that I should be able to pay before they are out of deferment and that I should be able to specify the amount while I 'm trying to do so. 

However, during the past year and a half, I have NEVER been able to pay these loans through the online system. It happens EVERY MONTH : I have to call, go through the costumer support, explain the problem to yet another customer support person, who 9 times out of 10 could n't or would n't understand what the problem was because ... why would I want to pay a loan back while its still in deferment? Essentially, they were trying to discourage me from paying them back.
Now that I 'm out of school, the problem has only continued. Some loans I am able to pay on, but I can only pay the minimum amount that THEY specify and only on certain loans that are no longer in deferment. I literally ca n't pay more than the minimum, which means Navient is forcing me to stay in debt longer and pay more over time on these select loans. For the loans that are still in deferment ( why -- I have no clue and they ca n't explain it either ), I ca n't pay at all -- which means these loans are getting larger because I ca n't even pay the interest on them. Each month I call and I " fix '' the problem - so i can specify the amount, but each month I go through the process of explaining the problem and asking them to fix it. Typically I spend between 1-3 hours a month going through this process. Depending on how helpful or nice the person is, it can be quick ( an hour ) or long ( 3 hours ). Sometimes they hang up on me, making the process even more infuriating. Now, up until this past month, every customer service person has been able to " fix '' the problem while I 'm on the phone -- assuring me that it will NEVER happen again -- this month, though, I was told that they could n't fix it at all. That they would put in a " request '' for the IT dept to look into the problem and that maybe in 7-10 business days it might be fixed.
But I have to wait 7-10 business days, and in the meantime I 'm still paying interest on these loans.
I can only guess how much money they have already ( and will continue to ) steal from me ( via interest ) each month, but multiply my case by however many student loans they are handling and I 'm guessing they are making millions on student loans by forcing people to only pay the minimum and by making it impossible to pay on loans while in deferment, assuming that these students are n't being tenacious like I 've had to be just to get a payment made. And even if this is just an IT error - I 've been reporting it to them for over a year now and they have failed to fix it : I ca n't believe their IT staff are that incompetent and if they are it seems criminally negligent for them to not hire sufficient IT support staff to make their online payment system function as it should ( and as it claims to function on the website - their own FAQs say you can specify loan amounts, but that is not a reality that has ever been reflected on their online platform ). They are a for-profit business so they have no incentive to fix the problem if it only benefits them in the long run. What I 've experience over the past two years is systemic theft perpetrated by crooks who are profiting off of the student loan debt crisis.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation