Consumer complaint received 2016-05-27
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Can't repay my loan — Can't temporarily postpone payments
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (KY)

I just XXXX from XXXX school in XXXX ( Yay me! ) and have well over XXXX in student loans. The irony : Navient does n't have ANY stake in my XXXX school loans, and I owe them {$1800.00} Stafford from a decade ago from XXXX. Because of credentialing delays I 'm still not working. Husband ( works in XXXX ) was laid off a month before I graduated. I was XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX and he took time off work - an ignored collections financial issue JUST for right now, but relates due to severely affecting annual income for XX/XX/XXXX. Nobody was hiring XXXX over holidays : in XXXX XXXX he still did n't have a job. We decided to apply for IBR for when grace period ended on loans because our life savings was taking a hit from basics like groceries and basic utilities - I know how to live like a pauper and seriously stretched the bucks. 

I went to studentloans.gov and applied for my IBR to be sent to my loan providers. All of them came back {$0.00} payment = good. XX/XX/XXXX Navient still was processing- I thought it was weird. I used their online features and emailed to inquire and they said " it looks like it 's about to be approved. You 'll be notified when grace ends of the terms and your payments. '' Well, I got a letter saying my IBR was accepted, but they never notified me of the plan terms or payments - they said to await further instruction. No mail and no emails. A month goes by and they finally email me ... I 'm late on payments. What? 

They had taken my IBR application, which was completed using XX/XX/XXXX 's income, which seriously was n't much at all, and said we made money, so we owed them. I can barely put food on the table right now - literally scraps - and I called them and said we were n't working, how can they ask us to pay if we have nothing?! I was nice - I just did n't understand it. They said I must have filled out the form wrong and did n't say where our income had changed. I have the form. I pulled it up and examined it again. It is correct, and they are the only ones doing this of the XXXX loan providers I have - everyone else says I owe nothing in payments until I renew my IBR. Except Navient! 

I emailed Navient what I filled out : " ... .it shows that we had income in XXXX, but I selected all options stating we had a CHANGE IN INCOME and we did not have any taxable income for XX/XX/XXXX, and still do not at this time. ( Please have someone look again and see section XXXX of the form, questions XXXX through XXXX. ) The tax information was required by studentloans.gov for the XX/XX/XXXX, due to us ALREADY doing our taxes. But I still completed the form stating we have NO CURRENT TAXABLE INCOME ( Section XXXX questions XXXX and XXXX ). '' I had to repeat over & over again to them - " we have no taxable income '' because the Navient rep told me I needed to tell them that in writing in order to process the info ... ... was n't that the purpose of the form I completed with studentloans.gov? 

I sent it to a Navient supervisor. I told her about the other loans and the issues. They came back with telling me that " you must return to studentloans.gov and complete the form again and re-submit. Do not include recent taxes. '' They only gave 1 month forebearance! 
This makes no sense. At that point I was crying and angry. 
To make things more complicated, my husband was offered a job THAT day. If I fill out that form again and say we have no income when he is now working - it 's fraud. I wo n't do it. 

What can I do? There 's no way to pay this right now - we have now lived off credit cards for months and MEDICAID since XX/XX/XXXX Navient did NOT use a government form properly! Wo n't give more forebearance. Emails on my loan acct are deleted!! I ca n't shake feeling like they delayed deliberately so they could get money from me, expecting my husband to get a job. I did everything XX/XX/XXXX - a government form AND I did it properly. I can work with hospital collections ... but NAVIENT!