Consumer complaint received 2017-11-26
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (CA)

I am a newly graduated XXXX with {$340000.00} of student loan debt. This loan is not only daunting in number but the loan is made up of 20+ different loans with several different interest rates ranging from 3.8 %, to 3 loans having 8.5 % interest! As I am a resident, and will be in public service for the prolonged future, the public service loan forgiveness option is my best option. Thus 5 years ago ( when I graduated ), instead of re-consolidating, to at least drop the interest rate ( those 8.5 % loans are ridiculous ), I talked with my NAVIENT Loan provider and applied for the IBR plan yearly to work toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness ( 120 on time payments ). In the last 5 years, I have done my part and have been working toward loan forgiveness. This year, I finished my XXXX and in order to continue to qualify for PSLF, I chose to work at a government agency in a low income area. I decided it was time to keep all of my PSLF forms on file. When I went to turn them in, I realized NAVIENT is not a loan provider that I can go through for PSLF ( they NEVER told me I needed to switch to XXXX XXXX which I would have done 5 years ago ), and when I went to turn in the forms ( XX/XX/XXXX ), XXXX XXXX ( Not NAVIENT ), informed me that 3 of my loans did not qualify for PSLF ( THE 8.5 % INTEREST ONES!!! ) but would qualify if I reconsolidated them into a PSLF type loan which is apparently VERY easy to do. I immediately, got off the phone with them and called NAVIENT ( XX/XX/XXXX ) and asked the loan provider if I was still on track for PSLF. She stated that I was. I asked to look in more depth, and she said " oh wait, it looks like 3 of them are n't " she stated, however, that it was very easy to reconsolidate into the proper loan but that those 3 loans would then start at day 1 of the 120 on time payments of loan forgiveness!!! Those loans are not small either, currently they are around {$62000.00}. NAVIENT should have ABSOLUTELY informed me of this 5+ years ago!! Additionally, if they could not have reconsolidated, they should have provided me with the option so I could reconsolidate to a lower interest rate with a private company!!! I was obviously frustrated with this, and told her I wanted to reconsolidate into a loan that counted. She sent me an email to do this, however, the link they sent in the email does not actually work, and when you go to the website there is no easy way to do the consolidation. I truly have to say, as a person who is the first to graduate from high school in their family, who is trying their absolute hardest to succeed, the american government has to do better than this! I trusted my loan provider and I was absolutely misguided. You may say, well you should look at the loans and check which ones qualify, to that I say I have every single year when I sent paperwork in for IBR. Additionally, if a NAVIENT Loan provider cant even tell which one of my loans qualify without looking more in-depth at each one, how am I supposed to tell which ones do n't?