Consumer complaint received 2024-07-30
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (VA)

In the mid to late XXXX, I attended the XXXX XXXX. My loans were all serviced by then Sallie-Mae , now Navient. After getting almost through the program, and realizing that I had yet to learn ( I was in the end of my third year ) anything related to the field I was trying to get a degree in, I parted ways from the school. I spent the next decade and some change struggling to pay my loans, going on income plans, seeking the various repayment plans offered, etc. Through it all, there was nothing Navient would do to lower the payments or whatever about the 2-3 private loans I had through them. So I had no choice but to pay the minimum.

Come this year, and the findings by the Federal justice system, the US Department of Education, that XXXX XXXX XXXX were basically running an elaborate fraud scheme, I started looking into my options. In regards to the two big private loans, one was initially for ~ {$6800.00}, and the other for ~ {$13000.00}. At this point, I'd paid the smaller one off ( the initial principle plus almost {$4700.00} in interest. ) and was most of the way done with the larger ( over the years, I'd paid all but about {$3500.00} off out of the {$13000.00} initial amount plus almost {$10000.00} in interest. ) Still, I wanted to be out from under it. 

Cue the beginnings of the long and arduous fight I've been dealing with since. 

First, I messaged Navient about if there were any options. It took a bit, but they sent me a vague email of " Oh, there's this school misconduct app, check your navient inbox by clicking this link! '' Which I attempted, but the link was broken. 

THen I sent them another message, saying " Hey, look, I got this response to my question, but where do I find the form. Your link is broken. '' The somewhat ugly response was " Fill out the app provided in a previous email. '' Very unpleasant form letter that all but said the word " XXXX  '' in it. Further attempts there got me nowhere. 

I ended up having to search via XXXX to find the application, and that took me to a XXXX XXXX that provided a link to a third party site because Navient was basically making this process as painful and impossible as they could. 

Then I filled out like ... .fourteen pages of application? I cited the specific loan numbers, the amounts, provided the Education Department " Summary of Findings '' in regards to the school, and had to go into extensive detail about how the school defrauding me and them was... harmful. As if being in crippling, inescapable debt wasnt bad enough, they wanted all kinds of personal details about the experience. I told them what I could. I even pointed out that while I understood we were both defrauded by the school 's overblown and glorified ponzi scheme, the feds had determined what the school had done was... well. Fraudulent. That the Federal Government was going to be REIMBURSING the money paid off on Federal loans for those schools -- and given that the federal government can be pretty miserly with cash, that's huge -- and that it felt pretty shady the way this was being handled by Navient. ( Particularly since the feds had to bully them into even doing this much. ) I honestly wanted my loans wiped out ... and I asked for the ~ {$30000.00} back I had paid them over the decade. Or at least a good portion of it, because ... if it was fraud... then it was also theft. They paid the school, but they made way more off me than they lost to the school. 

I submitted the application. Got an email after a few days that they had gotten the application, and my loan was placed in forbearance for 60 days. Over the next few weeks, I received a ton of ads from them about personal loans and the like, but nothing on the application. Then I get a " Your loans are going to be transferred to XXXX '' notice in my email. 

So I keep checking. Nothing has changed. 

This morning, XX/XX/XXXX, I check again ( I've checked a couple of nights a week since I submitted the application ). There, my loan has been updated -- what I owe has been " Zeroed out '' with a rather interesting backdate of XX/XX/XXXX. But there's no correspondence, no email ( and yes, I checked all my spam folders ), and I've gotten nothing in the mail. In addition my account is still labeled as " in forbearance '' for " another 10 days. '' Given everything, it felt shady, so I used their " Chat with us! '' button to get a person on chat. I really just wanted some kind of information. 

I was informed " oh yes, your application seems to be going through the approval process '' and that " oh, it takes a long time to process, so you'll get an email when its done. '' Okay, fair, I suppose, but really lousy customer service in a history of lousy customer service and shady actions ( Like not informing me ever when the interest rate on a loan changed -- sometimes by as much as 5 % from one month to the next, double dipping on taking money out of my account for monthly payments, etc. ). So I inquired if there was any chance of reimbursement on the money paid in to what was essentially a fraud scheme, and i was told " Oh, well, no. No money will be refunded for payments made PRIOR to your misconduct application being submitted. '' Which ... .like... Let 's think about that. Why would I pay AFTER submitting the application? The whole point of it was to get the loan wiped out and seek reimbursement for the financial damage caused by what has been revealed to be a fraud scheme by a school and capitalized on by a predatory lending company -- in addition to the recent decision about XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX and other colleges like them, I found in my search today that NAVIENT/SALLIE MAE has already been brought up in the past for BEING PART OF THIS WHOLE SCHEME -- there was a case in 2022 that revealed internal memos and stuff about how they were basically preying on people with these loans and fully expected people to default, refused to offer repayment plans, yo-yo-ing interest rates , the whole thing.

I informed the person at Navient I was talking to that I would appreciate documentation of all of this, and that at this point, I would be reporting the company for fraudulent behavior, theft, shady business practices, and seeking legal options for this.

At the end of the day, I'm one person, and they've made almost twice as much from me as they paid to the " school '' I attended. For them, $ XXXX is probably chump change... but for me thats a year 's income BEFORE taxes.

And they service millions of borrowers. There were thousands of people from the schools that the ED found guilty of this fraud scheme. If they're like me, then thats millions of dollars that Navient has STOLEN and DEFRAUDED from every day people.

Something needs to be done. Someone needs to investigate.