Consumer complaint received 2024-09-26
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan — Can't get other flexible options for repaying your loan
Company: EdFinancial Services (CA)

CFPB navient Navient illegally deprived me of opportunities to enroll in more affordable income-driven repayment plans and forced me to pay much more than I should and could afford to pay for years. In XXXX my first time calling to inquire about more affordable payment options I was immediately put into forbearance. Nothing else was discussed. Although I explicitly asked for options regarding repaying my debt as interest would still accrue and cause my balance to grow further. They told this was the only option. Again once that forbearance ended I called back in XXXX and was given the same option. This continued into XXXX all the way until I went back to under graduate school in XXXX. Then my loans were in payment pause due to ins school status. Once my year long program was over ( XXXX ) I called to inquire again about more affordable repayment options and was place into forbearance until my loans were transferred to another service provider in XXXX. All these years ( XXXX - XXXX ) I worked for the Federal Government and those years could/SHOULD have counted towards my Public Service Loan Forgiveness .

Lack of options and properly tracking my progress toward forgiveness, such as correcting harms from forbearance steering is a must. Navient not only steered me way from options but failed to even give me options that I may have qualified for like income-driven repayment plans instead put me into forbearance. This practice was cheaper and simpler for Navient, but detrimental to me the borrower. By steering me while struggling into forbearance where interest continues to accrue and capitalize XXXX illegal actions led me to pay additional interest charges for years a decade. Navient is a repeat offender with a long history of regulatory violations. 

Navient violated my Consumer Financial Protection Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. In addition to its unlawful steering activities, the Navient harmed me a loan borrower by : * Misleading/failed me about income-driven repayment plans : Navient failed to adequately notify me about income-driven repayment plans about the requirement to annually recertify their enrollment. I was not properly notified that submitting an incorrect or incomplete application to recertify my enrollment could lead to an increase in their monthly payments and delay loan cancellation. 
* Botching payment processing : I had and still have ( XXXX yrs after graduation ) and had multiple student loans with varying interest rates and monthly payments. When I did make payments meant to cover multiple loans, Navient misallocated payments often. Navient also misapplied payments made to a particular loan. These errors resulted in late fees, interest accrual, and negative credit reporting for many years. 
* Harming my credit and XXXX me : Navient tarnished my credit reports once I received a discharge on my loans due to the balance ballooning to payments I could not afford. 
* Deceiving me about Navients requirements for cosigner release : Navient made representations to me about me private loans that if I paid down my loans in a certain way, I could apply for their cosigners to be released. But Navient did not honor those representations. 
* Misleading me about improving credit scores and the consequences of federal student loan rehabilitation : For my federal student loan that went into default, Navients debt collection arm promised credit reporting relief to me if I completed a rehabilitation program. Navient failed to deliver on all of the promised relief.