Consumer complaint received 2024-06-29
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Don't agree with the fees charged
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (GA)

My loans were transferred to Navient around XXXX and I was on the plan that increased payment every XXXX years which I was ok with. In XXXX, during the time XXXX XXXX paused student loan payments, my loans were also paused with no further correspondence or so I thought. Around this same time, my student loans disappeared from my credit. During the federal payment pause, there was no correspondence from Navient until XXXX of XXXX that was put in my twin brothers name along with all of his personal information including his social security number. Navient stated to my brother that the payment was past due. My brother told Navient that these were not his loans and gave them my social security numbee, my name, phone number and they started calling me. I wasnt sure if it was a scam because no student loans were reporting on my credit.I called Navient and was told my account was at least 45 days past due and I was hit with over {$400.00} in late fees.This was my first time hearing that my student loans were in repayment after Navient put my student loans in the wrong person name with their correlating contact information. I asked to have the student loans brought up to current and to have the late fees removed because that was not my fault all of the loans was placed in the wrong name and social security number. They brought the account to current but refused to remove the late fees. I also noticed that my balance went from approximately {$26000.00} to over {$34000.00}. I asked them what happened because I thought my student loan payments along with the interest were paused during the federal payment pause. Navient informed me that they paused payments too but interest was still incurring ( which I found out was a lie and XXXX explain further down. ) and thats when I found out that my loans were actually federally backed XXXX loans and not federal student loans. I heard that the Department of Education had a program in place that if I consolidate our XXXX loans into federal student loans, I could possibly get my student loans XXXX under the XXXX or the borrowers defense discharge due to me attending a predatory school, XXXX XXXX XXXX which XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. I called the Department of Education for assistance with the federal student loan consolidation application. The representative was willing to do it over the phone but when she went into the national student loan database, my Navient loans were not showing up. She made the suggestion to manually add the loans to the consolidation application. I called Navient again to ask why wasnt my loans showing in the national student loan database and I was never given a real answer. I also inquired on why they were not showing on my credit report and was told, they wont show up on my credit until I am at least 90 days late past due. I continued on with the federal consolidation application, manually entering my Navient loans and submitted it. I received notice in XXXX of XXXX, that my loans with Navient could not be federally consolidated because they came back as private student loans. Feeling defeated and stuck with a possible predatory company, I placed this on the back burner. However, in XXXX of XXXX, my wife noticed that Navient rolled out a private loan discharge application for predatory schools which I felt I met the qualifications ( attended High tech-Anthem college and according to Navient, my type of student loans were private. ) On XXXX XXXX, I called Navient to have the loan discharge application sent to me and was told that the application didnt exist. I said yes it does and I would like to request application for it. Representative XXXX told me that my loans are federal backed loans and he couldnt see the side of the private loans. According to the federal consolidation application that I completed in XXXX of XXXX, my loans were considered private so I couldnt consolidate, but now XXXX being told by Navient that my loans are actually federally backed public student loans. I had the Navient representative to dig deeper into what has been going on with my account over the last XXXX years. According to Navient representative, in XXXX, in the middle of the federal student loan payment and interest pause, all of my loans were transferred to XXXX and stayed with aidadvantage interest free until around XXXX XXXX. Navient contacted aidadvantage and requested most of my student loans back from them, realizing they made a mistake transferring all of my loans over to them. When Navient received my loans, they placed my loans in my twin brothers social security number along with all of my brothers contact information, then added on approximately {$8000.00} of unpaid interest to the loans. They did conclude that all of this was their fault and pretty much we just got the short end of the stick. Navient representative also could not give me a reason why my student loans didnt show up in the national student loan database, nor could he give me a reason why they werent showing up on my credit. He had no clue why my student loans came back as private student loans when I tried to federally consolidate them and he had no clue how Navient could make such a big mistake and not even attempt to take any accountability for it. He did say that he would email the national student loan database to have my loans added that day so that I could reapply for Department of Education XXXX XXXX to get my loans away from them. I asked if they could remove the interest that was applied from XXXX to XXXX because if they had not made such a huge mistake, I would have continued paying on my loans and they wouldve been paid off by the end of XXXX. They said they could not do it with no explanation why. The only thing I received out of this ordeal is an apology but I feel that I deserve much more.