If Navient is hiding fees in your bill, you may have legal options.
Navient is a loan servicing and collection agency. They work primarily with student loans. Navient has been the center of recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lawsuits because of incorrectly processing payments that have resulted in consumers who paid on time being hit with late fees, interest charges, and negative hits to their credit reports. When you look at your statement each month, you might see normal information about your current loan amount, your monthly payment, and when your balance is due. So what should you do if you were incorrectly charged a late fee or found another discrepancy in your statement? We explain.
When you check out your statement, you should see mostly the same content each month:
Note: This breakdown should be the same whether you have a private loan or federal loan
If you see something wrong with your statement from Navient, you need to reach out to Navient customer service first. They might be able to explain why a charge appeared, where it originated, or help remove a mistake. If you are unsure how to reach someone, you can read some Navient customer service tips.
When you look at your statement, you might see the following fees:
This is a fee you get charged for the loan being disbursed to you. This is based on your credit history or that of your co-signer. You should only see this fee when you first take out a loan. It is sometimes called the “upfront fee” or the “front-end fee.”
You might see a past due fee on your bill if you did not cover the entire amount due in the previous month.
This is a fee you get for entering repayment. They take a percentage of your principal balance, so this amount varies based on your loan amount. This is sometimes called the “back-end premium fee.”
As the name suggests, this is a fee you are charged when a check is returned to you because you forgot to sign it, your account was closed, or you didn’t have enough money.
These are any fees added to your account that you have not yet paid. Navient does not provide information on the value of these fees or other fees because many of them are a percentage of your loan amount.
This is assessed when your monthly payment does not cover the total amount due (which includes any past due amounts). For example, if you have a $50 monthly payment but did not pay for last month and only sent in $50 for this month, you might be charged a late fee for not paying the total current due balance of $100.
If Navient incorrectly charged you a fee and customer service didn’t help, you have two other options:
The first is to sue Navient in small claims court. Many people have pursued this option for qualifying claims while concurrently filing complaints against Navient. However, there are limits to what cases qualify in each state. It takes a lot of time and money too. You need to make sure you know how to sue Navient based on where you live.
The second is to try something without the same limitations, with a potentially faster outcome. Using consumer arbitration, you have more flexibility.
Share your complaint about Navient with FairShake today.
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