Consumer complaint received 2017-08-14
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (TX)

In XX/XX/XXXX/XX/XX/XXXX of 2016 I consolidated my loans with Navient. I was told they would not be taking a payment that month but a payment was taken non the less. I called navient and was told that the easiest thing to do was to contact my bank and have them take the payment back, which I did. The Loan consolidation was completed by XX/XX/XXXX and I logged in to make a payment and set up auto pay. I was unable to use my checking account and was give the following error : Were sorry when you previously entered this bank account and routing number combination, we received a returned transaction from your bank. If the information youve entered is correct, your bank needs to send us a letter validating your account number to : Navient XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, PA XXXX ATTN : Fraud Department I immediately contacted my bank and had them send the letter to navient validating my account. Probably around XX/XX/XXXX I attempted to make a payment and set up auto pay and again received the above error. I contacted Navient and was told they never received the documents. I called my bank again, had them send the letter to Navient again. I did receive confirmation emails from navient that they had received the documents. I then attempted to make a payment online and received the above error yet again. I called navient at that time who said they did have the documents they just needed to be processed. I made payments bringing my account up to date at that time. I then received an email from them a few days later indicating that my payment had changed. I called navient to question the change of payment and they informed me that they had put me into Administrative forbearance until they could process my bank account information. I informed them that I had made payments that put my account current for the next 2 months so I did not need to go into forbearance as they should be able to process everything in a 2 month period. They fixed the payment back to its original payment amount. I again attempted to make a payment online in XX/XX/XXXX and was unable due to same above issue. I called and spoke with navient again, and again was told they would fix the problem. I made a payment at that time and was again ensured that the problem would be corrected. I have logged in and tried to add the bank account and it is still not fixed. I called again today and was told that they only reason I could not add my bank account was because the account was past due and if I made a payment it would allow me to use my bank account. I attempted to make a payment and yet again they were unable to process it through my bank account. They supposedly spoke with a supervisor and was told that once the payment was made I should be able to process the autopay. Each time I have to make a payment I have to call the number and and spend at least 10 mins or so fighting with the automated system that insist can help me but ultimately can not. I then have to process the payment on my debit card each month. This has been extremely frustrating to say the least. Besides not being able to set up auto pay and make timely regular payments, Navient continues to make the process very burdensome and difficult. It should not be difficult to make a payment for your student loans when you want to make a payment!! And Im supposed to deal with them for the next 30+ years???? Not to mention they put me into a very unnecessary " administrative forbearance '' without my permission, trying to get more money from me! At this point what recourse do I have?? Again it should not be difficult to make a payment! I have done everything that has been asked of me. If I did not have a debit XXXX check card I would have to make a trip to my bank to get a cashiers check and then go to the post office to mail in a payment every month. I did not sign up for that! I am trying to make timely payments and should be able to do so without having to jump through a thousand hoops each time.