Consumer complaint received 2015-07-09
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: IN
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Non-federal student loan
Issue: Can't repay my loan
Sub-issue: Can't decrease my monthly payments

Complaint:
I am applying for help because I saw the article regarding XXXX XXXX ( as well as other private schools ) fraudulent student loan charges. It says " XXXX XXXX XXXX along with various other branches of Mother Company XXXX have been under scrutiny for the past few years and have recently become a part of a decree from the government to forgive over XXXX in loans. Certain dubious acts have come to light such as falsified information, predatory lending, aggressive marketing, law suits and even as far as to receive a notice of request to delist XXXX. '' This is for my son whose {$80000.00} student loan turned into {$190000.00}. While all of his federal loans were deferred till he XXXX, his private loans were accruing interest the whole time he was in school. Unbeknownst to us, they did n't tell us he should 've been making some type of payment while in school. After he XXXX, he received a statement of how much he was going to have to fork over each month. It was close to {$1600.00}. So I called XXXX XXXX, at that time and after she reviewed his case she told me he qualified for a LOT more federal loans than what he received. This set a huge red flag with us right away!! These lead us to believe that the XXXX XXXX receives some type of kickback off private loans. Of course, when I contacted the financial office at XXXX they denied it all. What 's even worse, they never told us anything about most of these loans being private, not outside of when he first applied and of course we had to apply XXXX year at a time ( or it might 've been one semester at a time ) My husband and I had to co-sign for XXXX of these private loans. When XXXX of them came due, the payments were over {$1100.00}. He had n't even graduated yet!!! Since we co-signed we had to come up with the money. Since there was no way we could make that kind of monthly payment, we had to pull $ XXXX form our XXXX. XXXX still had an outstanding private loan from that bank that he could n't pay for either. The boy had no choice to file bankruptcy on his XXXX credit cards and car. At XXXX he had to move back home with no hope of getting a family anytime soon. 
Being that school loans do n't allow for bankruptcy, we just knew bank/loan agencies were n't allowed to call him during this period, so we figured this XXXX bank ( XXXX ) not necessarily forgot but was deciding what to do. Come tax season, ( after he already filed ) he received a XXXX from the collection agency for XXXX with a forgiveness of {$4100.00}. I know this was n't the full amount. When I called them about it she just told me he was required to pay taxes on it. I asked her if this is just interest and the rest wrote off or if it was just for 2014. She really did n't give a clear answer. After talking to a tax professional, XXXX most of which said they were n't aware student loans could be forgiven ) After reviewing some of the choices that the tax software gave, it was concluded he did not have to pay taxes on it. Still not sure what that loan will do to him down the road. The rest of his loans are through XXXX XXXX ( now Navient ). There 's XXXX in there that we co-signed for which he is paying on now. He was able to work with a consolidation place and got his payments down to {$800.00} a month for a year. He must reapply each year. He has another place that would reduce his payments to {$5.00} for XXXX years but not sure if he got that approved. I helped him apply for a so-called Student Loan Forgiveness through the phone number that was provided with the article. Come to find out ( which does n't surprise me ) it was for federal only. In my eyes, I see forgiveness as your debt will be wiped clean. ( or at least a huge portion ) This place was about the same way as the XXXX he applied to. 

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, IN XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation