Consumer complaint received 2022-08-25
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: VA
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Private student loan
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan
Sub-issue: Can't get other flexible options for repaying your loan

Complaint:
I have student loans with Navient, and have been dealing with this issue for 13 years. 

During that time I have been harassed, called XXXX, and sent to a supervisor because " I didn't understand what was best for me '' when I asked to call them back after speaking about trying to get my loans lowered, so I could afford them. When I spoke to the Supervisor, I was sent to, they gave me other options and when I asked him if the first person knew these options as well, he told me yes. I asked why the first man didn't give me these options, and the Supervisor couldn't give me an answer. 

I have told them several times over the years that I couldn't afford to pay and asked for income-based repayments because I was out of work, and I always got the runaround. Told they couldn't do much to help me, and was pushed into going into forbearance to the point that I ran out and didn't have any left. At the time, I thought it was helping me. Now I realize, it was only helping them because my debt continued to grow. 

After 13 years, I still owe as much now as the day I left school. I haven't been able to make a dent in all the fraudulent loans XXXX put on my shoulders. 

Which leads me to the current situation. I am part of the group that went to XXXX within the years specified that the school was conducting fraud against students. I was also part of the group that was receiving loans from Sallie Mae with their " Giving high-interest loans to students who it knew likely could not repay the debt. '' So in the lawsuit against Navient where it says : " As part of the agreement, Navient will erase {$1.00} billion of subprime private student loans that its predecessor, Sallie Mae, gave to students who attended for-profit schools, many of whom had low credit scores. '' I thought my loans were covered between the federal loans being wiped and my private loans. So when I called Navient today ( XX/XX/2022 ) they told me I wasn't because I was only in default for 5 months, not the required 7 months in the lawsuit even though everything else fit my case. 

When I brought up the fact that I was pushed into forbearance when I started to default, or put in forbearance when asking for help or affordable payments, and that Navient hasn't been helping me with affordable ways to help pay off my loans, that people from the company had treated me awful, that I have been in Borrowers defense for almost 7 years now, that XXXX XXXX loans were outright called fraudulent and that it was said : " It is time for student borrowers to stop shouldering the burden from XXXX 's years of lies and false promises, '' said U.S. Secretary of Education XXXX XXXX. " The evidence shows that for years, XXXX 's leaders intentionally misled students about the quality of their programs in order to profit off federal student loan programs, with no regard for the hardship this would cause. The Biden-Harris Administration will continue to stand up for borrowers who've been cheated by their colleges, while working to strengthen oversight and enforcement to protect today 's students from similar deception and abuse. '' How can my private loans not be considered with all the evidence that we were frauded? Still, I was told there was nothing they could do, and I would have to keep paying them. When I mentioned, regardless of federal or private, they all came from Sallie Mae and XXXX and were, therefore, fraudulent. The Supervisor agreed, but said they were still active loans. So I asked her, so regardless of them being from two fraudulent companies, and have outright called fraud, and how badly Navient has treated me over the years and pushed me into forbearance, I have to continue to pay on loans I don't deserve from a school that cheated their students. The supervisors just apologized and said there is nothing they can do. 

I even told her I was out of work atm, had been for almost four years, I have a XXXX  XXXX and am XXXX, and I was still having to try and figure out how to pay almost XXXX a month for these private loans. She did not offer me any help or options on how to better deal with the loans. She just kept saying she was sorry, there was nothing she could do for me in any way. 

I was so hopeful that this ordeal was over when XXXX and Sallie Mae were called out for fraud and cheating students, and now I feel like I am just being beaten down again with fraudulent loans because Navient won't do the right thing. 

When a Supervisor admits that they know the loans are fraud, but they won't do anything about it... It's just the same thing over and over that I have been getting from Navient for so many years now, they just keep taking my money, and making me owe more and more under the guise of helping me, but they are only hurting me and others like me. Withholding information and options from us, and now - just outright telling me my loans are fraud, but I have to keep paying.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation