On Wednesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed suit in federal district court against Evil Corp. — er, Navient — the largest student loan servicer in the nation.
Before we get into all that evil, a little background: Navient is a spinoff of Sallie Mae — a quasi-governmental entity that holds and services student loan debt — and it’s the largest student loan servicer in the nation. You might think the word “servicer” implies that they’re doing someone a service. Lol, no no no. The “services” that Navient provides are (1) keeping track of how much money you owe and (2) prying it from your poverty-ravaged little hands.
Navient holds $300 billion — yes, with a “B” — in student loan debt, meaning you may well owe them an obscene amount of money right now. The CFPB sued Navient over a number of issues with that “service” (no, I will not be removing the air quotes during this post) including cheating those struggling to make ends meet out of the government mandated opportunity for lower payments and (fighting the urge to kill) harming the credit scores of disabled borrowers, including severely injured veterans.
I repeat: Severely. Injured. Veterans.
You’re probably wondering how quickly you can put a stop payment on that autopay you’ve got going with these SOBs. The unfortunate answer is, you can’t.
However, the CFPB is working to force Evil Corp. to compensate their alleged victims financially, and, in some case, modify loan terms in a way that is less evil. If you think you might be one of the aggrieved parties here, check out the CFPB website to see how you might be able to participate. Their mission is to protect people from predatory practices by credit and lending institutions, not just student loan servicers.
But hurry, because the newly unified Republican government is pretty intent on tearing the CFPB apart because, y’know, #MAGA.
