Navient Leading all Student Loan Servicers in CFPB Complaints

New data from the government shows that Navient, the largest student loan servicer in America, was also the most complained-about company in all of financial services in the past three months.Navient, with 1,400 official complaints, beat out companies such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and credit reporting agency Experian, among others, by substantial margins.From November 2016 to January 2017, complaints against Navient skyrocketed by 813% compared to November 2015 – January 2016, and also spiked sharply just days after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced its federal lawsuit against Navient for unlawful practices against student loan borrowers.Complaints against other student loan servicers also increased by 380%.Among the allegations against Navient are steering struggling borrowers into forbearance rather than income-based repayment plans, which generated billions of dollars in unnecessary interest. According to findings from an investigation by Buzzfeed News – which included testimonies from both current and former Navient employees – the company’s call centers are “high-pressure environments” in which employees “cut corners” with borrowers in order to meet their own quotas at the risk of being fired. Of the nine employees interviewed, none believed that customer satisfaction was a factor in how their job performances were judgedor that their jobs depended on it.While the CFPB has identified a variety of problems with the federal government’s student loan servicing, and this certainly isn’t the first time it has done so, this month the Department of Education was ordered to cease a series of efforts from the previous administration meant to improve and “streamline” these services. The new administration has also backtracked on a potential move which “would have made a loan servicer’s past performance – including a history of complaints – one of the most important pieces of criteria in awarding a lucrative government contract,” which, of course, would have hurt Navient and other student loan servicers which receive high numbers of complaints.