Consumer complaint received 2024-04-15
Product: Student loan — Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Problem with customer service
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (CA)

I am a XXXX XXXX XXXX  class member, I was lucky enough to get a small subset of my loans for the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  XXXX XXXX forgiven as part of this settlement but, because of deceptive practices by the school and by Navient ( Previously Sallie Mae ) the majority of the student loans I borrowed are under Navient 's private loan category and I unfortunately have to deal with them all the time, I've been trying to work with them since XXXX and they have been very mean, aggressive and deceptive with their collection tactics and overall very non-transparent and hard to work with. To date I probably owe them more than what I originally borrowed because their only intent and goal in mind is to make profit out of me, they never offered to help me bring down my balance and instead would put me on plans, deferments, payment plans, etc. that ultimately ruined me, have me unable to purchase a reliable car to drive and scrapping by since my early XXXX, I am now XXXX XXXX XXXX and I, to date, still have very bad memories and experiences with Navient that tarnished my life in a negative way.

Navient ( And Sallie Mae ) have very poor customer service, it is hard to reach them over the phone, nearly impossible to get a representative over the phone unless they are calling to collect from you. Navient, in the past, has reached out to random people that I know to try and get a hold of me. In previous calls, Navient has had my cosigner on the line, listening in to my conversation with them as if trying to ambush me into a worse standing with my co-signer and attempt to collect money from me. Navient ( and Sallie Mae ) have collected payments from me and applied them poorly throughout my multiple loans with them. I vividly remember one year I was required to set up monthly payments, at least for XXXX  months in advance, I had to pay a fee too. After setting up the payments I continued to get harassing calls from them on a regular basis to the point where one time I spoke with a representative and told them I had a payment scheduled for that month ( XXXX ) and asked them to please stop harrassing me, my cosigner and anyone else they had on file as a contact. That same month of XXXX, Navient took out XXXX payments in the same month without my approval, back then, those payments were a very large percentage of my income and I unfortunately had to pay my rent late, borrow money from my mother and miss out on giving my family XXXX gifts. I had to speak with many people to get the duplicate, unauothrized payment refunded to my account, they attempted to deny the refund, they were mean and harrassed me multiple times.

All of the above is current, in the past, when I initially took out my loans, Navient mislead me and my cosigner into getting the majority of my loans as private signature loans that I later found out would benefit them and the school 's recruiter more, financially. It was very unfair because as private loans, I was awarded less rights as a consumer and was heavily targeted and harrassed by navient ( and sallie mae ) 's customer service departments.

Navient has poor transparency surrounding their fees, rates and repayment options. They would not tell me and still don't tell me, whenever they feel like increasing my interest rate. When I first took out the loans, my payments for the private signature loans were around {$450.00}, today, the are around {$650.00}. I don't even think I've been able to decrease my due amount from what I originally borrowed. Navient is a loan shark, they charge a lot of fees to set up payment plans, if you fall behind they are relentless and treated me like garbage. Many times I had a lot of financial hardship with making rent, paying for car repairs, hospital bills, etc. and Navient was very bad to work with on deferments, loan modifications, forbearance or income-driven repayment plans. One time, when I first bought my home I was going through economical hardships because we needed to do a home repair and that repair along with our mortgage amount put me in the negative. When I called customer service to attempt to set up a payment plan, deferment or some sort of financial relief they spent a long time with me on the phone, went over all of my expenses, clearly saw that at the end of month I was spending more money than what I was making and told me that my mortgage payment was a luxury, that I didn't have to buy my home and that it was my fault for buying a home and they would not be able to help me with any income-driven repayment plan or any sort of payment help or option what so ever. It was disgusting to speak with them, go through all of my personal expenses to at the end be told that because I decided to buy a home and better my life they could not help me out.

There was also a period of time where I was going through a lot of economical hardships that I wanted to go through a loan modification with them because the minimum payments I was making were not impacting my balance, they were very deceptive and never wanted to go through loan modifications with me, they would always steer me towards going on deferment until I completely wiped it out as an option, they never told me my options, I always had to plead to them to help me out and I would never get told what my options were.

I hope this is helpful so whomever reads this can be informed of the bad payment mismanagement, poor customer service, lack of transparency, deceptive practices and difficulty obtaining loan modifications that Navient puts people like me under.