Consumer complaint received 2018-03-08
Product: Debt collection — Private student loan debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action — Threatened or suggested your credit would be damaged
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (FL)

I have 2 private installment loans through Navient that have defaulted due to Navient 's refusal to work with me on an affordable payment plan. My loan became due shortly after graduation in XX/XX/XXXX,  and after exhausting all deferment and forbearance options, they offered me a very unreasonable Income Based Repayment plan of over {$500.00} a month. I begged and pleaded with them to see if we can look up any other options and they flat out told me NO. They simply said that if I can't make the suggested payment, then my loan will go into default status, and ruin my credit. 9 years later I have two charged-off accounts that Navient sold to a debt collector about 2 years ago, when instead it should have fallen off of my account after 7 years in the Charged-off status. Once defaulted, and over the period of 9 years, I have gotten harassing phone calls multiple times a day beginning around XXXX and not stopping until well after XXXX every single day. Once Navient sold the loan to a debt collector about 2 years ago, the debt collector scared me into making interest payments of about {$120.00} a month. That continued on for about 6 months before I simply could not make the payments any longer. The debt collector used scare tactics such as taking me to court, suing me, as well as garnishing my wages and taking my tax return. If Navient initially offered me a reasonable payment plan, I wouldn't be in this mess to begin with. Instead, they insisted that they couldn't help me and basically forced me into a default status ruining my credit. Because of these 2 private loans, and only these 2 private loans, I am unable to purchase a home of my own, and have been paying double in rent than I would be paying on a mortgage. One private loan had an initial balance of {$16000.00} and has since skyrocketed to {$35000.00}, while the other private loan had an initial balance of {$12000.00} and has since skyrocketed to {$25000.00}. These new balances include late fees as well as interest. I also have federal loans through Navient, and because they are Federal, I had been given way more options to relieve high payments. While since the beginning of XX/XX/XXXX or earlier, I have been given the option of an income based repayment paying {$0.00} every year. My Federal Student loans, however, are on hold with Navient due to government investigation of the loans as well as the school that I had attended. This school has since been shut down, making my credits towards classes as well as degree null and void. Since attending this school, they have sold it to a different company which has shut down all classes pertaining to my degree, and will be shutting their doors in the very near future, if it hasn't happened already. This school was also never honest about these private loans and never disclosed what a payment would be upon graduation, nor did they inform me of how few options I had to pay these loans back. They certainly never explained that they were different from Federal Loans.