Consumer complaint received 2019-07-22
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan — Can't temporarily delay making payments
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (NY)

I have been unemployed for over two years, first and primarily because of a sick parent who required full-time caregiving after XXXX XXXX XXXX. I continued to pay the debt monthly as possible with savings because, though the bulk of my student loans were granted an unemployment deferment with ease. I attempted on several occasions to get those deferred as well, but they refused and said private loans are not eligible for the same deferments. Moreover, any application of temporary deferment would only be for 60 days and required a per-loan charge of {$50.00}. These two loans thus charged me {$100.00} for a deferment of two months, which while helpful given that the two loans would be over {$800.00} for the two months, it seems usurious and wrong that this charge is only for an application and is applied to neither principal nor balance. Interest continues to accure. So I waited until absolutely necessary to do so. Since my mother died and I have lost stable housing and support, as well as exhausted savings, while having not earned an income for over two years and living with what little money I gain through odd jobs and help from friends, I ultimately did apply for and was granted a deferment of two months in XXXX because they were filing derogatory remarks on my credit. Mind you, this is all while they allow the bulk of my loans to be deferred. It is untenable as a position when it's the same lender and they have everything in front of them to see that I have been in a prolonged period of financial hardship due to family matters and now prolonged unemployment. I have gone on dozens of interviews and worked with two staffing  agencies, but continue to lose out on opportunities because my professional experience is freelance creative work and while I supplemented my income for years with personal administrative support that experience is years ago and does not translate easily to the city in which I now live. It's a wildly unfortunate position to be in considering I have years of work and a master 's degree from a highly reputable institution. But they are now demanding payment again, aggressively calling to collect past due balances and I don't have {$100.00} to get another deferment. What am I supposed to do? I just applied for Income Based Repayment to put my loans onto that plan wherein, for the time being, I won't have to make payments but will be considered current. It's unfortunate as the interest will accrue and I have several hundred thousand dollars in debt, but I can't let my credit rating go down any further, at risk of precluding me from stable housing, banking, credit lines and employment. Many employers run such checks and I don't want to be in default. But why is a lender allowed to do this? Why can they not keep the payments across the board. Why is there no federal oversight of these private loans that protect me in the same way that the vast majority of my other loans do? I did not know this was the case when I took the loans. Servicing these two was for many years all I could do financially and as a result let interest accrue continually on deferment/forbearance. The lender is uncooperative despite many many calls and I have no choice right now but to let them go unpaid while I continue to look for work, and while the process of putting the bulk of my loans on IBR works its way through the system.