Consumer complaint received 2019-08-06
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Trouble with how payments are being handled
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (CA)

I requested to be placed on an income based repayment plan that would offer me a lower payment, and instead was placed on a plan that would offer me a higher payment. In XX/XX/XXXX, I applied for and was placed on the IBR income driven repayment option for my student loans.

In XX/XX/XXXX there is no record of an attempt to recertify on my part in order to stay in that plan ; in XX/XX/XXXX outstanding interest was capitalized, and I then began making much larger payments, presumably on the standard repayment plan, since I did not recertify for my income driven repayment plan. 

In XX/XX/XXXX, I applied to go back on an income driven repayment plan ( please see that application attached. ) I very clearly marked the box indicating that I was not on an income-driven repayment plan, and I marked 2 different options for IDR plans that I would like to be placed on. 

The 4th page of that document clearly states that if I selected more than 1 plan ( as I did, ) that I'm requesting the plan with the lowest monthly payment, and that should multiple plans have the same monthly payment, that I would be placed on the REPAYE or PAYE plans before the IBR plan. 
I was placed on the IBR plan. When I contacted Navient today, a representative explained to me that the reason I was placed on the IBR plan was that I had previously been on that plan. However, nowhere in the attached document does it state that I will be placed on a plan that I was enrolled in previously ; in fact, all of the language on page 4 ( borrower requests, understandings etc. ) specifically states that I should be placed on the plan that offers the lowest payments. It even specifically states the policy in the event that I am switching between IDR plans, which implies even further that just because I was previously on one IDR plan does not mean I am seeking to re-enroll in that same plan.

I specifically sought the plan with the lowest monthly payment amount. On the phone today it was confirmed to me that the PAYE and REPAYE plans are both limited to 10 % of my discretionary income, while the IBR plan ( which I was pla
ced on ) is capped at 15 %. I believe Navient failed to adhere to page 4 of this document when placing me on an IDR plan.

On the phone today, a Navient representative implied first that I was placed on the IBR plan because I had been on that plan previously, which is not a policy that I see represented on page 4 ( " borrower understandings. ) In fact, I find the information on page 4 to run completely contrary to that notion, given that it includes language specifying that the understandings may also apply to those seeking to change IDR repayment plans.

The representative also implied that I had never left the IBR pl
an I had been on, and that thus the application I filed in XX/XX/XXXX was not a " new '' application, and that I would have had to go through some exit procedure to leave the IBR plan I had been on previously before reapplying with a " new '' application to change plans. I believe that to be false for 2 reasons, the first of which is outlined in the paragraph above ( that the application can be used to " switch '' from one plan to another. ) The second reason being that I clearly never submitted a recertification in XX/XX/XXXX, and that my payment history included a capitalization of interest and an enormous increase to my monthly payments ; I had clearly been removed from an IDR plan and placed back on a standard repayment plan. 

So even if this idea of a " new '' application were accurate, the application I filed WAS a new one! Since I clearly marked in my XX/XX/XXXX application that I was NOT currently on an