Consumer complaint received 2020-11-04
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Don't agree with the fees charged
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (CA)

This purpose of this letter is to address grave concern with my student loan servicer, Navient ( formerly Sallie Mae ) and to initiate a formal complaint against Navient. I am of the belief that Navient has erred in the billing and calculations of my student loans from the onset of our relationship. I am also of the belief that I was led astray by Navient customer service representatives during the entire years of servicing my account. I have twice recently requested a full audit from Navient on my student loans, but the only solution that I received was a balance history print out, which provided some financial details of concern. I also requested a copy of my promissory note on multiple occasions, but have yet to receive it. 

To provide some historical context, I was initially a persistent victim of Sallie Maes telemarketing tactics from XXXX, as I received daily calls from them urging me to consolidate my loans and to lock in my current interest rate of 5.125 %, which is heavily above current federal student loan rates. I was nave, unaware, and uneducated on financial student loan trends. Being an inner-city XXXX-American person, I was not exposed to nor adequately prepared to fully understand responsible borrowing and the financial trends of the student loan paradox. I believe that I was racially targeted and as a result I became a victim of their predatory tactics. 

Upon leaving college, I struggled to attain a stable job in the disciplines and fields that I studied in and obtain ANY full-time employment at all for years, approximately nine, which has almost been the entire life of my loans with Navient. That being said, after I relented to Sallie Maes marketing schemes and agreed to consolidate my loans, I experienced long term hardships, thus I had to request forbearance and deferments on my student loans. Each time that I called into Sallie Mae ( from XXXX XXXX, I was urged by the customer service representatives to choose hardship/unemployment deferments. After I exhausted all of those, I was urged to request forbearance. On multiple occasions, I specifically asked what would be my best financial option and was told that the two previous methods would serve my situation best. Even after multiple years of unemployment, Navient still lead me towards these two options. I was not introduced to the IBR payment process until I had fully exhausted the above methods. Had I been given IBR as an option, I could have greatly minimized my accrued interest, specifically multiply instances of compound interest. As I previously stated above, I have been unemployed or under employed for almost the entire duration of my consolidate loan period with Navient, but yet they misdirected me to more financially disadvantage options. This is on record! 

Additionally, Ive noticed many numerous late fees which I dispute, primarily coming from XX/XX/XXXX. In XX/XX/XXXX, I filed a claim with the FSA Obudsman Group when Sallie Mae erroneous didnt process my deferment request that they urged me to apply for, which resulted in my loans being defaulted. Sallie Mae eventually bought back my loans, but never removed late fees and I was also charged a large claim payment fee and subsequently charged multiple instances of Capitalized Interest, which should not have happened and this ill-advised error contributed to my debt increasing substantially.

In closing, I am of the strong belief that my student loans have been grossly mishandled and that Sallie Mae/Navients tactics have bordered on fraud. I would like my above requests to be met and that my loans be looked into more closely by the Navient Office of the Consumer Advocate and FSA Ombudsman Group. Navient has caused me an immeasurable level of stress and an incalculable amount of financial damage as a result of their errors and questionable accounting practices. I would like a thorough re-examining of my student loans and correction of any and all errors on my account. To further substantiate my claim, I have included a copy of an email correspondence from XX/XX/XXXXbetween myself and Mr. XXXX XXXX of the CFPB. I will give Navient one last time to get this right before I take legal action. This has gone on far too long and this is my final demand to have my account be adjusted correctly!