Consumer complaint received 2019-02-06
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: DISCOVER BANK (OH)

I am writing to ask your help with my student loan lender, Discover. Discover is asking me to pay them {$1200.00} a month to repay my loans, when I make {$1600.00} a month. According to the FAFSA, our family made just enough to not really need assistance, but not nearly enough to actually pay for it. My mom was a single parent with XXXX kids, XXXX of which had already begun college, which she co-signed for and supported them throughout. By the time it was my turn, she was almost maxed out of being able to co-sign, and making {$70000.00} a year does not pay for XXXX college tuitions and a mortgage. I took out private loans through Discover since FAFSA did not cover much of my tuition, but halfway through school my mom could no longer co-sign. She is the sole caretaker and always had been, so I had no one else to turn to for help. I had to take a semester off since I couldnt afford it. Eventually I had no choice but to ask my grandparents, who live in rural southeastern Ohio and still live in the house they build themselves XXXX years ago and who also dont have the means to support a financial burden like this. They agreed to co-sign on the loan and it went through, but now I had yet another stressor. Not only did I have to make sure I paid all my loans back on time after school, but now my grandparents were involved and worried about it all. 

Fast forward to XX/XX/XXXX. I had one class to go before graduating. Since it was only one class, I decided to take it online and move to Delaware to work for XXXX XXXX XXXX and live with my dad, who is divorced from my mom. While there, I was hit head-on by a drunk driver and sustained multiple injuries, including a XXXX XXXX, torn XXXX XXXX, and a XXXX XXXX XXXX. Both the XXXX XXXX and XXXX   required XXXX and months of XXXX XXXX on top of the physical pain and emotional trauma I felt afterwards. I had nightmares about the accident and still get extreme anxiety in a car. Due to the accident, I spent XX/XX/XXXXrecovering from my injuries and worked part-time. This is the year when the trouble with my loans began. 

Out-of-state tuition at XXXX, plus living stipend and other expenses, totaled roughly {$36000.00} per year. The monthly payments Discover demanded of me were between XXXX XXXX-XXXX. 

Typically, after graduation, a borrower is given a six-month grace period until they need to start paying on the loans. Since I had taken time off after graduating due to my severe injuries from the drunk driver, I couldnt afford to repay my loan since I was unable to work full-time. I was forced to use my grace period during the months I was recovering from injuries. When that was up, I was able to apply for repayment options. Due to my injuries and low income, I qualified for hardship assistance and that gave me another six months of no payments. 

In XX/XX/XXXX I began the last class I needed to graduate, along with a few graduate level classes and a job working with my professor. Being in school, I was able to freeze my payments as well which helped for those four months. 

Shortly after graduating, I found a job in XXXX and moved back from South Carolina. I now work for XXXX XXXX XXXX doing environmental monitoring for quality control. When I alerted Discover that I had a job, they set my monthly payments again between XXXX XXXX-XXXX. My annual salary upon starting in XX/XX/XXXX was XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX after taxes, equaling roughly {$1600.00} per month. I sent in pay stubs to Discover to show my income and prove that I couldnt pay the monthly amount, and they lowered it based off my income. I had no delinquent payments, and my income has not changed, yet in XX/XX/XXXX they changed my monthly payment back up to XXXX XXXX-XXXX. Upon seeing this, I called Discover, told them my situation had not changed and that I am still making the same amount of money, and they told me there was no other option. They told me the only way I could qualify for another 6-12 months of lowered payments is if I pay the full amount requested, on time, each month, for at least 6 months -- an impossible request. Even if I were somehow to miraculously give them my entire monthly pay, not needing to pay rent and other bills, I still wouldnt be able to pay on time because my paycheck is broken up into two paychecks. Therefore, forgetting my other bills such as rent, utilities and a car to get to work, and putting all the money I make into my loans, I still would never qualify for lowered payments because I wouldnt be able to make the full amount payment on time for six months. 

It's like a vicious trap you cant get out of. I cant pay the full amount because I dont make nearly enough money, yet the only way to get a lowered payment is by paying the full amount. That doesnt make any sense. My only option was to pay what I could on the loans every payday, and hope my credit didnt plummet from the lack of complete payments and not being on time. Since this started, Discover has been harassing my grandparents trying to get them to make my payments. My grandparents were afraid and didnt know what to do, so they pulled money from their Social Security and paid a loan they co-signed for me. With interest, the original {$15000.00} loan, cost them {$30000.00}. Since paying off the loan they co-signed for, Discover still continues to contact them and harass them about making payments. When confronted about it, Discover said they had NO RECORD of them paying the loan! My grandparents have the bill and proof of payment, and it still wont stop. Not only are they harassing me with phone calls daily, when Ive repeatedly proved my income and am making what payments I can, but they have somehow lost the record of my grandparents payment and wont leave them alone either. 

Is there any way you can intervene on my behalf with Discover to see if they can be flexible and give me a more reasonable payment schedule that doesnt bankrupt me? I would be so appreciative for any assistance and am writing because I dont know how to get Discover to have some understanding of what my life situation is like.