Consumer complaint received 2017-05-19
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC.
State: AZ
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:
On  XXXX   XXXX ,  XXXX , I contacted Navient Account regarding my loan #  XXXX  to obtain information regarding the estimated number of months left before I would be able to apply for a loan forgivenes s under the Public Safety Loan Forgiveness program . The first customer service agent I spoke with advised me that the loan program that I was currently in did not qualify for this program. I was transferred to another agent that had better details and explained that my loan was not on the correct repayment program and that I needed to be on income based repayment plan and that I was not currently on that plan. She then advised me that I needed to consolidate my loan and offered some examples of how that could occur. Finally, she advised me that my loan type was not even the correct loan type and that it needed to be serviced by a federal student loan program and tha  t Stafford loans that I currently had were not correct.
I asked her what needed to be done to correct this and advised of a telephone communication that I had had with them approximately 4-5 years earlier when I contacted them to set up my monthly payment amount and my inquiries about this loan forgiveness program. I have been employed in as a qualifying public safety position for almost 10 years now. I recall some specifics about that conversation with respect to the following : 1 ) If being a county government probation officer q  ualified under this program and was advised it did.     2 ) What was the total number of payments that needed to be made and it was 10 years ( 120 payments ) 3 ) If my loan qualified and was advised it did.
4 ) If the payment plan qualified and was advised it was.
I relayed this to the agent and she advised me that items number 3 and 4 were not accurate. She inquired if I got this information from Navient or another servicer. I told her that I recall that my loan was serviced by someone else prior to Navient b  ut could not recall the name of the provider and she could not tell me whom it was. I stated to her that I contacted my first servicer, whom I now know was  XXXX   XXXX , when I first started my employment and recall that I did qualify and that I needed to make my payments. At the time, I was not able to make payments towards my loan in the amount they needed. I can not recall if I have made a total o f two or three calls to my loan servicing company. However, I distinctly recall contacting them when my loan was transferred to Navient to  ensure nothing changed with respect to the status under this loan forgiveness program. The final call I made to them was likely in  XXXX  when I was able to make payments towards loan. At this time I was very specific with respect to discussing this matter as I was entering the payment phase of my loan. At the termination of this phone call, I was under th e ( now false ) impression that I was set up and was making qualif ying payments towards this loan forgiveness program and that no further action was needed on my part except to make payments by the due date each month.   I contacted Navient on  XXXX  because I am coming up on my 10 year anniversary with my current employment and wanted to get an update on where I was at with my payments. After the conversation with the Navient employees, I felt like I have been kicked in the gut. After this months payment, I have made   57 payments towards my loan, all of which were supposed to be moving me closer to meeting my obligations for this loan forgiveness program. I asked repeatedly what can be done to resolve this error and was told that they are not in charge of this program, I did not qualify with the loan type and payment plan. They suggested that I could consolidate my loans with them and become eligible. However, I asked them why I would consolidate with them but then have to change my loan to another servicer that oversaw that specific program. They provided me with phone number to who operated the program. I did ask several times what could be done to resolve this and was advised there was not resolution to this and that I should request the new provider to look into crediting me for the previous payments.
I did follow up phone calls to the department ( servicer ) of the forgiveness program, based on crude estimates of my income and loan balance  , my loan payment would increase to over  XXXX  a month which would equate to around {$48000.00} in payments and 10 years before I would even be eligible for forgiveness. I have currently mad e 57 pay ments towards my loan. Now I am at the beginning, and based on my current age and retirement criteria, I will likely not be employed in a qualifying position at the time I am eligible for forgiveness. I have m ade 57 paym ents totaling {$9000.00} for nothing. As a result of the business practices of being deceptive or due to incompetence, I am at square one with respect to this program and will likely not be able to take advantage of it due to the likelihood of not being a public safety employee after the  120 pa yment requirement.   In addition to this, I contacted  XXXX   XXXX  after my graduation regarding repayment options for my loans. I was steered towards the forbearance program. I recall discussion with them during this time about various repayment options and the monthly payment amounts they were demanding were not a viable financial option at the time. I hate to wonder if there were other options that were available that would have helped keep the loan balance lower.   Please understand that the forbearance conversation occurred approximately 10 years ago. The payment plan that was to be set up for t he Public Safety loan forgiveness occurred approximately 5 years  ago when I set up the current payment plan. I do not have names of people I spoke with or other specific information that might be more helpful. However, it was not until  XXXX , that I learned that the   57 payments that I have made were for nothing.
Sadly, they have " no records '' of this to include telephone, email or mail that was sent to me   about the " correct '' way to apply for this program. I do not have any documentation as it was a telephonic conversation and no further action was needed on my part.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation