Consumer complaint received 2017-01-23
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with my lender or servicer — Having problems with customer service
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (CA)

I have 5 complaints : ( In chronological order ) 1. I do n't recall what year it was, but I called Navient about the XXXX Forgiveness Program, but Navient said to not worry about it because part of my loans were consolidated with my wife and therefore could n't be forgiven. That ended up not being true, since part of my loans were not consolidated. I now might be getting around {$3000.00} in forgiveness which is what is left on my loan, even though I qualify for {$17000.00}. If I qualified before, then I would have had more of my loans paid off earlier. I do n't remember when I called, but Navient might have a record of the call. 
2. XXXX day when balancing my checkbook I noticed that the amount deducted for my student loan was less than the automatic payment. I did not request such a payment reduction so I called to have my payment increased back to what it was. I knew that a lower payment would increase the life of my loan so I did not want that. 
3. When my wife and I both decided to officially apply for the XXXX Forgiveness program in XXXX, after my wife recommended I try, we received a note that forgiveness would n't take place with any money that was borrowed before XXXX XXXX, 1998. It was disappointing since the amount before 1998 was about {$5000.00} and the amount it was consolidated into was borrowed after 1998 and was about {$47000.00}. I do n't know if this was Navient 's issue, but it was disappointing. We consolidated to fix our interest rate, so we have been penalized for trying to be smart with our money. 
4. My next complaint is the most ridiculous. In the XXXX Forgiveness application my employer listed my ending date as " Present ''. Navient contacted me that this was unacceptable and I would have to have my employer put an actual date and have my employer initial the change. However, just below the " Present '' was my employer 's signature with the date he signed the document. So I had to call a supervisor at Navient to accept the application " as is '' since the date at the signature area indicates a " present '' date. It was so upsetting that I had to call about this, and the supervisor said they would accept the date since there were notes in the computer that " present '' and " current '' should be accepted. I can guarantee that there are numerous applications that have gone in before mine and I 'm not the first applicant to have the word " present '', so my application should n't have been put on hold ... and my last complain is why I think Navient is trying to stall Forgiveness Applications. 
5. Currently my application for forgiveness is being processed, so Navient put my account into an automatic Forbearance until the application can be reviewed ... however interest still accrues. That would n't be a problem, accept Navient suspended my " interest discount '' for automatic payments since my account is not being paid while in Forbearance, even though I never asked for the automatic payment to stop and Navient is delaying my application with the word " present ''. So after Navient probably figures out a way to deny my application, I will have a larger payment from the larger interest rate. 

I hope these all made sense and I hope that someone in a higher position can change these bad practices for future loan borrowers. Thank you for listening.