Consumer complaint received 2021-01-26
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (NY)

I went to graduate school in the XXXX. Made my first payment to then Sallie Mae in XXXX. Have since paid off {$41000.00} of a {$34000.00} student loan. As of this writing, mostly due to capitalized interest my principal amount is {$38000.00}. My estimated total payment is {$100000.00}. In XXXX I had my principal amount down to {$19000.00}, because I had paid ahead, my next payment due was not until XX/XX/XXXX. I was on track and in striking distance of getting out from under this debt. I started a XXXX XXXX in XXXX. A year later my XXXX second-hand car broke beyond repair, so I got a brand-new-second-hand XXXX. Then came the Great Recession shortly thereafter. I was able to keep my fledgling business, by restructuring and was able to pay off my SBA backed loan not only on time ( balloon payment ), but without missing a single payment. I was also able to keep paying on my 5-year, $ XXXX/month car loan, again without missing a payment. It wasnt until I purchased this car that I became aware that credit scores stopped at XXXX, never gave it a thought, just always lived below my means and paid my bill on time. The finance guy, at the dealership, brought it to my attention. He told me that in all his years of working in the industry, he never met someone with an XXXX credit score. I was like, XXXX out of XXXX? He was like, no, XXXX out of XXXX. That was then. Thanks to Navient. 

In XX/XX/XXXX, two months before my next student loan payment was due, given the state of the economy and my current situation, I reached out to servicer inquiring as to what options were available to me. The answer came back file for Economic Hardship. So I did, only to get a reply stating that I had filed too earlier. It was XXXX and my next payment was not due until XXXX. According to them. I needed to file within 30 days of the date my next payment was due, which as I stated above was XX/XX/XXXX. Even though I was not delinquent at the time, I was sent a letter asking me to choose the date in the future when I wanted the economic hardship to apply and/or initial a specific spot in the letter for delinquent loan. These two options were in the same letter. Looking back I now suspect I was being set up to go into delinquency, I just didnt realize it at the time. And this is how my delinquency, administrative forbearance, late fees and capitalized interest journey started, and continues. 

Even though I complied with the request in the letter, the rest of XXXX, was a struggle to get to some definitive plan. As the months ticked by, I started getting past due notifications, then threating to report me to the various credit agencies notifications, and finally the threat of default. It was at this point that XXXX XXXX  XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) got involved. It wasnt until XXXX made me aware of an Income Sensitive Repayment Plan, that I realize such an option existed. When I finally made it on to this Plan in XX/XX/XXXX, my servicer had racked up late fees, capitalized interest, and anything else they could tack on to my loan amount. 
Ive been on this plan since then, however, every time Im in receipt of correspondence from Navient, the letters always state somewhere in there, Capitalized interest may apply. That should read Capitalized interest will most definitely apply, because I have never been shown any leniency when it came to tacking that on. And they have never given any example of when it may or may not be applied. It has come to my attention that while on the Plan, now refer to as Income Based Repayment, no interest should be capitalized. However, Ive recently noticed that in XXXX and XXXX capitalized interest in the amount of {$5300.00} and {$5900.00} were applied, respectively. I have maintained my IBR eligibility and status since XXXX. So there is a bit on contradiction there. Ive recently gotten my latest recertification letter a month behind schedule and had some concerns. Through the Ombudsmans office I was able to finally reach someone at Navient located within the boarder of the 50 States, but just like XXXX, I am getting nowhere. I do plan to contact HESC directly and see if they can also assist. Im just looking to get Navinet to communicate with me. I would add in a timely manner, but this late point, its not applicable. 

Steering me to file Economic Hardship when Income Sensitive Repayment was a much better option, not getting back to borrowers with time sensitive issues so the clock can tick and in turn rack up late fee and the likes is willful, predatory and unforgivable..