Consumer complaint received 2015-05-05
Product: Student loan — Non-federal student loan
Issue: Dealing with my lender or servicer — Having problems with customer service
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (NJ)

In XX/XX/XXXX, I applied for and was granted XXXX private student loans totaling {$49000.00} from Sallie Mae to cover expenses associated with my undergraduate education at XXXX University. I deferred payment on these loans until my graduation in XXXX and began making payments on the loans in XX/XX/XXXX XX/XX/XXXX. On XXXX separate occasions during repayment of the loan, I requested and was granted forbearance periods and resumed making payments at the end of these periods. In XX/XX/XXXX, as I was preparing to make a career change, I requested an additional forbearance period from Sallie Mae. I was directed to a customer service center that was clearly located in a country other than the United States to complete the forbearance request ; it was extraordinarily difficult to understand the Sallie Mae customer service representative, but I believed I was able to convey my request and was told my forbearance request had been approved for XXXX months. I was advised that this was the last forbearance period available on my account. 

At some point thereafter, Sallie Mae apparently sold their student loan servicing to a company called Navient. By this time I was under the impression I was in a forbearance period, had moved, and was in the process of starting a new job. In XX/XX/XXXX, I began receiving voice messages from Navient, but they were not specific as to why they were calling and rarely left voice messages at all ; they did, however, call incessantly. They even contacted family members but did not state why they were calling. In XX/XX/XXXX XX/XX/XXXX, I attempted to re-engage Sallie Mae by logging on to their website, the same website I had made my student loan payments through since XX/XX/XXXX, only to learn they had become Navient. I updated both my physical address information and my cellular phone information. I was surprised to see that Navient had not honored the forbearance granted by XXXX XXXX, so I made no payments but made efforts to contact Navient. I called Navient no fewer than XXXX times over the XX/XX/XXXX, only to be transferred between departments a number of times or disconnected. Approximately XXXX weeks later, I received a letter at my residence ( the updated residence I had given to Sallie Mae ) from a company called XXXX XXXX indicating that they were a debt collection agency. After another XXXX calls to Navient, a representative told me Navient had defaulted on my student loans. 

I conducted additional research and found my experience with XXXX Mae/Navient is not unique. I file this complaint against XXXX XXXX because XXXX XXXX used deceptive and unfair lending practices throughout the life of the loan, made insufficient effort to notify me that they were selling the servicing of my loan, and charged exorbitant, unreasonable and unfair fees. In fact, despite having made payments of more than {$30000.00} on the initial loan balance of {$49000.00}, Navient now incredibly claims the loan balance is {$64.00}, XXXX. I file this complaint against Navient because they failed to appropriately notify me of their assumption of the loans or their intent to default at the residence of record I provided to them.