just take my money
May 7, 2017 10:36 AM Subscribe
Half of my student loan payment keeps getting reversed. What could possibly be happening?
I made my first student loan payment through Navient two weeks ago, and I received an email confirming that the full amount had been posted to my loans. Then, a week ago, I received several emails from Navient saying that part of my payment had been reversed because my bank was apparently unable to locate the checking account I had listed. I logged into my Navient account and sure enough, half of the amount I had paid had been successfully posted to some of my loans, while some of my other loans still have tiny payments like $0.33 or $3.20 still due on them. I tried to pay off these tiny amounts. The payment went through. I received another email saying the payments had posted to my loans, but a day later, I was notified that the payments had been reversed again. I've checked the checking account number I put down. It's the correct number. Additionally, if I had put down the wrong checking account, half of the payment wouldn't have been successfully posted to the other loans.
As the payment is due in five days, I'd really like to just make this damn payment already. I can't write a check as I live outside of the US and no longer have an American checkbook. (The bank account I'm trying to pay from is my US account, and it's already cumbersome enough having to make a tranfer between my UK and US accounts to ensure I have enough to pay off my US loans every month.) Has anyone had similar issues, and if so, how did you resolve it?
I made my first student loan payment through Navient two weeks ago, and I received an email confirming that the full amount had been posted to my loans. Then, a week ago, I received several emails from Navient saying that part of my payment had been reversed because my bank was apparently unable to locate the checking account I had listed. I logged into my Navient account and sure enough, half of the amount I had paid had been successfully posted to some of my loans, while some of my other loans still have tiny payments like $0.33 or $3.20 still due on them. I tried to pay off these tiny amounts. The payment went through. I received another email saying the payments had posted to my loans, but a day later, I was notified that the payments had been reversed again. I've checked the checking account number I put down. It's the correct number. Additionally, if I had put down the wrong checking account, half of the payment wouldn't have been successfully posted to the other loans.
As the payment is due in five days, I'd really like to just make this damn payment already. I can't write a check as I live outside of the US and no longer have an American checkbook. (The bank account I'm trying to pay from is my US account, and it's already cumbersome enough having to make a tranfer between my UK and US accounts to ensure I have enough to pay off my US loans every month.) Has anyone had similar issues, and if so, how did you resolve it?
Best answer: Dan may well be right, but you need to get on the phone with these people ASAP. A problem with student loan servicing will never fix itself. It's entirely possible it's their dumb error as well. Like, if you assume that the phones are staffed with chimps who will get off the line with you and immediately revert to throwing their own excrement at each other rather than trying to solve your problem, you will not be far wrong.
posted by praemunire at 12:23 PM on May 7, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 12:23 PM on May 7, 2017 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: I rang Navient in the end. Though the person I spoke to on the phone didn't know why the problem was happening, when I elected to pay by debit card over the phone, the payment went through successfully. So for now, it looks like my solution will be to ring up Navient every month and make a card payment over the phone.
posted by quadrant seasons at 10:09 AM on May 13, 2017
posted by quadrant seasons at 10:09 AM on May 13, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
One possible remedy is to find a better way to transfer the funds to the US bank, so that the US bank trusts the source of the money better. Another would be to perform the transfer earlier, to avoid running afoul of the minimum holding time.
posted by the Real Dan at 11:09 AM on May 7, 2017 [3 favorites]