Consumer complaint received 2019-02-08
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan — Problem lowering your monthly payments
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (AZ)

In XXXX my son graduated from high school & was recommended to XXXX College of XXXX by his teacher at his high school. He was accepted into the College. I set out to find out about the student loans ( at that time, Sallie Mae ) that were available. From learning that most people going to college were going to Sallie Mae for their student loans. I only needed help with his tuition as I could handle his other expenses : room & board, books, etc. The tuition was {$30000.00}. a year ( {$15000.00} each semester ) ( X ) five ( 5 ) years. He proudly graduated from XXXX College of XXXX with a degree in XXXX XXXXXXXX & XXXX XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX. At that time, I understood that once he was done that we could refinance/consolidate all of the loans into one with a fixed loan & payment. We knew that it would take time to pay back but were both willing to make this happen. 

However, we were never given a copy of the loan agreements. I asked constantly. They never came in the mail. Needless to say, we were not aware that they would be private loans therefore not being able to refinance them at all. All of the loans are adjustable rates. I started paying interest on the loans from the beginning to help with the overall expense. I would make payments from {$200.00}. to {$750.00}. @ month. I know their interest was not that high but the rate is not reflected on the documentation I was able to print from Navient web site for each loan. None of the numbers make sense & literally 15 years later of payments and the principal balances are higher than the original loan. It has become very clear to my son & I that we will " never '' be able to pay off these loans and there is something seriously wrong with the numbers on the documentation. None of it makes sense. I don't know how they can keep adding thousands of dollars of interest & fees to these loans. 

The payments started at approximately $ 700.+ a month. The payments now are approx $ 1300.00+ @ month. We call at least once a year looking for help. Navient ( Sallie Mae apparently sold the loans to Navient ) says, " we can give you forbearance '', which is just increasing the interest & paying nothing on the principal and it appears they just tack on more fees. 

How does this help? I recently called again & they agreed to a " rate reduction plan '' for six ( 6 ) months. Now the " reduced '' payments are {$730.00} @ month which helps but will not last long and nothing is going to principal & it's not even paying the monthly interest in full now. 

I'm VERY concerned because I am now XXXX yrs old & single, my son is now XXXX years old & married with a 2 yr old son & they are having a XXXX XXXX at the end of XXXX. I have spent all of my retirement monies on these loans and still am paying a portion each month. There is no way they will ever be able to buy a home for their family with this extreme burden and I'm not going to be able to keep helping pay these loans. We are greatly concerned about our financial future. I also just found out when I was trying to refinance my house to put me in a better position, that Navient put 60 day lates against my credit & dropped my credit score by 150 points. Now I can't refinance. 

I pray that you can help us! This is a complete injustice to the American people. I know that we are not the only ones that are affected like this. This has to be stopped. We certainly never went into this thinking that we wouldn't pay. We want to pay our bills & do but when a company is stealing from us, how do we stop it? 

I have documentation that reflects these payments, all going to interest on only ( 1 ) loan and the principal actually increasing. There are repayment fees for thousands of dollars. On each loan there is capitalized interest for thousands. After he graduated, they allowed 6 mos forbearance, which we discovered later just allowed the interest to grow. This was the same time that the mortgage/real estate world came crashing down, which is my occupation and the music world was crashing too. My son went to XXXX for his XXXX with XXXX XXXX & discovered there were no jobs available in the XXXX  world. I ended up having to file BK & did not know that I had a choice of bankrupting against the student loans ( because they were private ), so I didn't. Long story longer ... we have made our payments ( I am the co-signor on my son 's student loans, which we were told was the only way he could get the student loans ). 

Please help us.