Consumer complaint received 2018-04-03
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. (ND)

My student loans were transferred to Navient in XX/XX/XXXX. In the beginning, Navient had sent me repayment coupons to pay my payment. I had my loans under an income based repayment plan. At the end of XX/XX/XXXX, I had to submit my annual paperwork to continue with the income based repayment plan. Ever since this was submitted I have had nothing but problems. In XX/XX/XXXX, I had to call Navient to find out what was going on with my paperwork because I had not heard from them yet and I knew the payment was due XX/XX/XXXX. They told me everything was processed and the payment was the same. I told them that I wasn't sure that was correct as I had made much less money the previous year, so the payment should have went down. I have done these income based repayment plans for many years, so I am well aware of how they work. Navient told me I would need to file more paperwork to dispute the amount. I did what they had told me and again, did not hear back from them. I sent the same payment I had prior to filing paperwork for the current year. Next, I called XX/XX/XXXX, having not heard from them and knowing the payment was due. This time I was told the payment had gone down. I asked that they send it to me in writing, along with payment coupons like I had before. I never receive either of them. I sent them the new payment amount to the address that I always had. It was received and cashed. This brings me to XX/XX/XXXX. I still did not have payment coupons, so I sent the payment to the same address that I did the previous month. It is a PA address and the only XXXX I have. I received an email a week after I sent my payment saying that they had not received my payment. I called my bank to see if the check had cleared and it had! I called Navient back and they told me I would need to send information from my bank stating it had cleared. I did all of this the third week in XX/XX/XXXX. XX/XX/XXXX, I received a phone call from Navient saying that my XX/XX/XXXX payment still had not been received by them. I explained the situation and they transferred me to someone else. I was on hold 20 minutes before someone came on and told me that my payment had been sent to the wrong address. It had been sent to the Department of Education in XXXX, GA. I stated that that was impossible as I don't even have an XXXX, GA address to send the payment to. They had no explanation as to how it got there. Navient stated the Department of Education should be refunding me the money but had no idea when it would becoming back to me. In addition, I would need to send my XX/XX/XXXX payment to Navient again in order for my accounts not to default. I had a few questions : ( 1 ) How come the Department of Education (? ) cashed my check when it was wrote to Navient and they didn't even have an account in my name? Navient couldn't answer that. So did the Department of Education cash my check and put it into a fund to gain interest off of it for a week or so before apparently refunding it to me? ( 2 ) How do I know this money has been refunded to me? Can I get a phone number to verify this information? All I see is that it has been cashed. Navient couldn't provide me a phone number. ( 3 ) What would have happened here had I not called and spent months/days looking into all of this? I would have never heard about any of this and my loan would be in default. I have NEVER defaulted on my loans and I have had them for 10 years. I have also never had an issue with repayments until Navient. I have no guarantee that I am going to get my original monies back, nor where it is. I have no guarantee that Navient isn't going to send my " non-payment '' to the credit bureau. Finally, I need to send another payment to Navient. When I asked Navient how we could prevent this from happening again, I was told to make sure I send my payment to the correct address. I again explained that I had. I am concerned that Navient is mishandling payments and then expecting students to make a second large payment in order to not default on their loans. I am in a situation where I have extra money saved to make a second payment, but I know many who do not. This shouldn't happen to anyone.