Consumer complaint received 2024-04-24
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (NY)

I made an agreement to Autopay an overdue loan back in XX/XX/XXXX. I have the agreements and payment dates in text form, " e-signed ''. 
I then continued to pay the agreed amounts each month, some months paying double because of not remembering the autopay would come out. 

Despite the fact that Navient said that these payments would be applied to both loans ( one larger loan and one smaller loan ) these payments were only applied to the smaller loan, and the larger loan went into default, which I did not know, because I knew I was making my payments on time and there was no update to the website to reflect that these autopayments were coming out. I called about this at least once and they said they didn't need to be reflected on the website because I had made the agreement over the phone. 

I continued to make these payments, again sometimes double, and the larger loan said no payment due for months... I still made the autopayments, assuming that, as agreed " to make payments current '' as part of a " forbearance agreement ''. Again, these payments were not applied to both loans ( even though I have the texts claiming that they would be ) from XX/XX/XXXX. 

On Friday, XX/XX/XXXX, at XXXX, I received a very suspicious-looking email claiming that " time was running out '' but that I needed to call by XXXX Eastern time XX/XX/XXXX. This email also ( presumably illegally ) had a list at the bottom of the email of all email addresses receiving this email ( including mine ), a very informal subject line, a number of grammatical errors, and was sent from an informal-looking, personal email address. 

When I called this number that Friday evening, " XXXX XXXX '' whose number I was given to work with directly, claimed that my loan had been in default since XXXX and even if I had called in XXXX it was too late. She claimed I needed to settle the debt for {$7600.00} by the end of the month, saying I could write a check by the XXXX to clear by the XXXX but that if it didn't clear I'd be even more legal trouble. 

When I proposed a realistic number that I could come up with by this date, she said it would " ruin her reputation '' and she would be " laughed out of the office ''. She said she would put this on hold until Monday, but that there was nothing I could do except for settle the debt before the end of the month, and that even though I had been paying more than the agreed upon amount the entire time, it wasn't their fault or problem that they had only applied these payments to one loan. 

I received a follow-up email just now XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX, with similar grammatical and spelling errors, from the same email address. It also claims that " *Business hours may vary at the end of the month. '' The email address is " XXXX XXXX XXXX '' uses the Navient letterhead and logo, and is either a scam that breached some personal data of Navient customers or Navient is scamming me, but either way it is incredibly unprofessional and I have to assume is committing illegal acts. Please advise.