Rant: Navient and stonewalling customer support

[Arthur Dent]

These Navient [expletive] are the scum of the earth.

For anybody who doesn't know, Navient is a private loan servicer for federal student loans. My wife has a balance with them. In times of personal and health related stress, she made some late payments and was assessed late fees. That time is now over, the account is up to date, and all payments have been made in full on time for over a year now. Nonetheless, several months ago a late fee of $6 randomly appeared on the account. Since it was a small amount, we just went ahead and paid it, but the same fee again appeared on the next monthly bill. After spending a total of probably 3 hours on the phone with several different representatives, I finally got one who said they would correct the issue so that the previous payment would cover the late fee. Instead, this person apparently made some kind of computer error, and the next bill came back not with a $6 late but now with a $300 late fee. After spending many more hours on the phone, sometimes getting a representative that would promise to correct the issue, no correction was made.

I finally talked to a supervisor who again attempted their standard long hold times with stonewalling procedure but ultimately told me to write a letter to headquarters documenting the problem. I have done so. Of course, they did not bother to respond to the letter until a month later when I spent another hour or so on the phone with them. The response is a form letter, the only content of which is, "We have reviewed your account and unfortunately the late fee(s) you referenced in your inquiry cannot be removed from your account because your late fees were assessed in accordance with your promissory note."

This comes after I had included in my letter copies of my statements showing that the account originally had no outstanding late fee and included printouts from their website documenting how the previous payment allocations had been altered resulting in this new late fee. They did not respond to one bit of the substance of my letter.

Anyway, I've probably lost everybody already with this screed, but I wanted to ask for advice.

Anybody have any experience or idea about what to do if you just get completely stonewalled by customer service dealing with an error they made? In my opinion, the charges violate the terms of the loan contract, but if they just refuse to do anything about this, I'm kind of at a loss. I could contact a lawyer, but I'm guessing that would end up costing much more than the $300 at stake. In my fantasy world, we get to declare the whole loan invalid due to their failure to maintain proper record keeping.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Tweet the company, tweet the CEO, if you can find an email address for him, email the CEO. Gmail helps you with the guessing game a bit when it comes to emails, type in what you think it is, then try hovering over the name, if there's an avatar they associate with the address, you can be more certain it's real.

[GeddyWrox]

TT's suggestion is good. After that, small claims court???

[GeddyWrox]

BBB?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

As a PS, as someone who works in support it makes me really sad that this situation is common enough to have those steps at the top of my mind. The bar is so so low to do it well as a company.

[stlouie_lipp]

Sorry to say I don't think your fantasy is coming true. You could write back asking them to point to the specific section of the note upon which they base their decision and the facts supporting the charge. Really try to force the issue. CC almost everyone of the "higher ups" at the company that you can identify.

It sucks. Good luck.

[go birds]

goddamn that pissed me off just reading it.

i understand customer support puts up with a lot of [expletive] but many many time customer support is the root of the problem.

its why, these days, when i do come across great support, i am always sure to take the survey if offered one, or at least offer to speak to a manager to praise them.

it sucks you have to put forth this much effort, but the suggestions in this thread are really good.

[lukethedrifter]

When I've run into this sort of problem recently the only way I've gotten anything done is via social media. It's crazy but it's apparently the only place customer service matters for some companies.

[cardsfansince82]

The one time I was pissed enough to write to the BBB I actually got a pretty good resolution from them, but that was years ago. I've read they've become more of a scam than anything else more recently.

I'm a Navient customer too. I should probably keep a closer eye on my statements.

[IMADreamer]

Call Clark Howard. I've heard him numerous times on his show take up cases like this and help the person fight the big company. You could at least shoot him an email. You've got nothing to lose at this point.