Consumer complaint received 2024-09-18 00:00:00
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Struggling to repay your loan — Problem with forgiveness, cancellation, or discharge
Company: Maximus Federal Services, Inc.
State: IL

Complaint narrative:
To whom it may concern, The total balance of my federal loans was incurred through predatory practices from XXXX and its sister company XXXX XXXX as it relates to the federal loans listed below. Starting from roughly a year after my graduation in XXXX, I began getting emails regarding the maturity of the loan repayment timeline. They did not offer any plan choices that would take into account my current financial hardship. I was unable for find work for at least three years ( XXXX ) while I was still billed for the predatory loans. I applied for a forbearance, which was hidden deep in the websitess structure, due to financial difficulty on XX/XX/XXXX and continued to struggle to make payments. My loans went past due in XXXX and XXXX continued to hound me with predatory emails that allowed me to suffer much distress. They utilized the names of associates who became overbearing with their spamming of back to back emails. I have included all of these messages in the attachments to this message. All immediate documentation was suspiciously transferred from XXXX to XXXX in XXXX in lieu of the pending litigation which ended in XXXX. I was fortunately able to recover some information via the new provider. I hereby request the total loan balance to be forgiven due " mismanaged payment processing, which negatively impacted my credit loans and directed student loan borrowers like myself into more costly repayment plans and away from lower-cost income-based choices. This was my experience during my time of financial hardship. They offered no respite for the psychological strain having to repeatedly pay into expensive repayment plans entailed. Numerous lawsuits filed by the Attorneys General of several states, including Illinois, Washington, Pennsylvania, California, and New Jersey, against XXXX  and its violation of consumer protection laws by engaging in unfair and deceptive servicing and collection practices, made me aware that I was not the only one suffering this horrendous treatment. In my most vulnerable years, I was targeted. I also have been negatively impacted by the abuse of XXXX XXXX, XXXX sister company, which perpetuated similarly " predatory subprime private student loans. '' Despite promising to help borrowers find the best repayment option to minimize interest costs, XXXX  deceptively steered distressed federal loan borrowers into costly long-term forbearances instead of informing them about the benefits of income-driven repayment plans. Interest that accrued during these forbearances was added to borrowers loan balances, pushing borrowers deeper into debt as was my experience. XXXX  also failed to adequately inform borrowers who did enroll in income-driven repayment of the yearly obligation to re-certify income and family size information. In addition, while operating as XXXX XXXX, XXXX made predatory subprime loans to students attending for-profit schools and colleges with low graduation rates even though it knew that borrowers would be unable to repay the loans. XXXX  made these risky private loans as an inducement to get schools and colleges to use XXXX as a preferred lender for highly profitable federal loansXXXX XXXX engaged in a variety of other unfair and deceptive servicing practices, including failing to follow borrower instructions concerning allocation of payments, asking delinquent borrowers to pay more than the amount necessary to bring their accounts current, and promoting cosigner release benefits for private loans while implementing requirements designed to ensure that very few co-signers were ever released. The Attorneys General in many other states investigated XXXX for these and other violations of consumer protection laws. These lawsuits and investigations by state Attorneys General resulted in this settlement further cementing my experience with their financial misconduct. 

I have attempted to contact XXXX for comment and they now parse the issue onto the newer aiadvantage. My account on Navient is now removed and all documentation has been removed from that site regarding my account. 

My loans are all direct loans and thus qualify for forgiveness under the finding. 
XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - Subsidized. Amount : {$5900.00} XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - Subsidized. Amount : {$2900.00} XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - XXXX. Amount : {$2900.00} XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. Amount : {$10000.00} XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - XXXX. Amount : {$2900.00} XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - XXXX. Amount : {$12000.00} XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - XXXX. Amount : {$1200.00} XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - XXXX. Amount : {$24000.00} XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - XXXX. Amount : {$1200.00} XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - XXXX. Amount : {$3800.00} XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - XXXX. Amount : {$3700.00} XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - XXXX. Amount : {$1200.00}

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation