Consumer complaint received 2017-04-04
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with my lender or servicer — Received bad information about my loan
Company: Navient Solutions, LLC. (OH)

Complaint:
At the end of XXXX, I submitted my tax paperwork to renew my XXXX plan. I received an email that it was denied and have been having issues with Navient and customer service ever since. Now that I am married, I no longer qualify for XXXX because it takes my spouses income into consideration. My spouse also pays student loans, so he is not paying mine and his income is not helping me towards my payments. His loans, however, are private student loans, so Navient said there is nothing they can do about it. In XXXX XXXX, I talked to a representative about my repayment options and estimated amounts for repayment. She said the best option for me would be a graduated repayment plan and to call back in XXXX ( when my plan expires ) to set that up. When my plan expires, the payment is set to be around {$290.00} on an " expired income based repayment plan. '' This is still much higher than I have been paying the past couple of years. I called and talked to someone else in XXXX XXXX and they said I needed to either pay a standard payment of ~ {$420.00} or go into forbearance and make a minimum payment of {$5.00}. My payments at the time were ~ {$93.00} so I did not expect it to jump up to {$420.00}. I could not afford that so I had to do the temporary forbearance and pay {$10.00} to exit my current plan. They told me they were going to submit all of the paperwork and put me on a new graduated repayment plan and that my payment would update after XXXX XXXX because the next payment would n't be due until XXXX XXXX. My payment did not update after XXXX XXXX so I called back again and was told that no one submitted any paperwork for me to enter into another repayment plan. I was also told that the graduated plan will not count towards my 10-year public student loan forgiveness - only XXXX and standard plans will count. I talked to this woman about my options to be on a plan that will count towards my public service forgiveness and she told me that I can enter the Income-Contingent repayment plan and pay ~ {$260.00} per month. She assured me that the math added up to the {$260.00} payment. She told me again that I needed to pay to exit my current plan and submit paperwork, which I had already done both. She found that in my file and re-submitted the paperwork from XXXX for me to be placed on the XXXX plan. I got an email shortly after that I needed to pay again ( {$420.00} standard repayment or go into temporary forbearance ) to exit my current plan. I called again and talked to someone else. She did the math as well and said the XXXX plan would be about {$260.00} per month and she said she made a note on my account that I already paid to exit my current plan and submitted paperwork. She said it should be done by Thursday XXXX XXXX. I still had not received anything at that time so I called again. The woman I talked to said " it was just submitted today '' after putting me on hold for a few minutes and that it should be done by XXXX XXXX, XXXX. I received an email on Saturday XXXX XXXX that I had been entered into a REPAYE plan and will owe {$360.00} per month due XXXX XXXX. I called again on XXXX XXXX to talk to someone and explained everything I had been through and what I had been told. She said that the XXXX plan does not equal {$260.00} for me and that I was misinformed. She told me the best they can do is enter me back into my expired XXXX plan to lower my payments and that it should be done before my due date of XXXX XXXX. I am extremely unhappy with this entire process and have been misinformed so many times. I do not want to enter into forbearance or deferment but with payments so high I am not sure what to do next and Navient can not seem to help me.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation