student loan corp

thanks so much to all of you for being here on this rainy day my apology for being a few minutes late thanks for being here. i'm joined by ben roesch he's one of our attorneys in our consumer protection division and is very intimately involved litigation i'll be talking more about the work here in a moment we're here today to announce after a multi-year

investigation that we are filing a major lawsuit against the nation's largest student loan servicer thats navient corporation and its subsidiaries. in 2014 as you may know sallie mae spun off its student loan servicing business into navient which is a separate company. navient services, to give you some context, navient services 300 billion dollars

in loans for 12 million current and former students nationwide of course that includes many thousands of washingtonians. our lawsuit alleges that while still operating at sallie mae navient engaged in unfair and deceptive practices in its student loan business including predatory loans to students attending for-profit colleges with very

low graduation rates anyone who received private student loan from sallie mae prior to 2010 that maybe students had those problems for for-profit colleges as well as students at private univiresities vocational schools public schools, trade or, graduate students undergrads are potentially impacted

so i want to be clear - you can be a uw undergrad you can be a graduate student at gonzaga can be in a trade or vocational program. the key is if you you receive private private student loan from sallie mae prior to 2010 you could be involved also anyone who has their loan service by navient and of course has experienced the conduct we allege is also potentially impacted by this loss. so it's a

broad group of folks here in washington state navient in our view repeatedly placed its profits and cost-saving operations ahead of its responsibility to the students that they serve many of washington current and former students struggle under a heavy burden of student debt.we have a couple posters that talk about the about the large spike in individuals

borrowing, taking out student loans and the amount of debt that student currently have. the federal consumer financial protection bureau estimates that more than a quarter of student borrowers are either delinquent or in default on more than 175 billion in debt at least 10-percent of washington borrowers default on their student loans

washington borrowers complain about student loan servicers and we receive manyy complaints here at the ag's office frequently cite trouble communicating include difficulty obtaining accurate information with their servicers and receiving harassing calls his man famous loan servicers party entities charge of processing and receiving monthly

payments of jerusalem we're not allow present and past your bottom line on the back shortly to say we filed our control section lawsuit 13 county superior court in conjunction with lawsuits illinois officer general close the federal consumer financial protection bureau best by the way cells last name far both espn2 separation and as i mentioned she

was very involved in this from its inception in late 2014 will give you the highest level overview of our us of our litigation and we're happy to take any questions that you might have we start investigating a late 2013 along with illinois vs gift tv this involves definition with having executives thousands of pages of company

documents then wasn't involved in network as you might imagine now the predecessor company you some examples of a predatory loans any for-profit colleges with graduation rates lower than 50-percent despite your expectations at extremely high percentage of students will not be able to repay them for baron forbearance

allows payments we have her excessive interest continues adam when you have that where payments begin again insurance status on loan principal borrowers are essentially paying interest on conservation that's good for the company for the fast msg it's not so good for the borrower's long-term value in our view in

properties years financially strip federal loan borrowers in the short-term forbearance rather than help them apply when income-driven repayment programs are better for the borrower's income derivatives and plans recognize the long-term difficulty in the borrower's management situation i was famous be made to be just rather to a percentage

of history and has a possibility definitely miss my future for borrowers choose an income-driven repayment plan fabulous did not do enough to inform them of an agile surely obligation they have to recertify their income and family size will give you specific many borrowers just an email saying there was an important docs waiting for them to

log in abeyance websites to learn more tomorrow did not realize it was a significant that generic email and they were penalized with significant monthly payments like they did not go along and recertified each year so you get a generic email you don't realize how important that is but you need to go and follow that

document to recertified otherwise the end result is significant monthly payment is another example applying and allocating payment before bunch of course of a student loan servicer but our investigation found that when servicing to loan fabian misapply borrower payments and failed to follow our instructions concerning how

texas payments should be allocated copy borrowers to receive unnecessary question cole and requiring to spend time correcting navvies mistake was washington borrower told us that her loans of our on autopay and she pays more the amount due each month but for months she and her cosigner on the loan for harassing question calls on task to

balance to reprogram her by the way there are no that all caps no path development rather than air on their end and how they are applying my payment each time i call is taking over 30 minutes them to actually resolve the issue we have it happen again the next month i'm sick to death of killing these people went there another person's

shoulders at every month national apply for payments totaling 5461 she's got a phone so can't explain when we find them and every month she and her cosigner collection calls required to call in to correct here another individual complaint natty told him that his chest had not arrived with his bank records shows now because it actually positive

six days earlier we also found the audience successfully promoted a cosigner release feature of prestone to entice family and friends and cosine loans the reputation with that lens tomorrow and demonstrated ability to pay the cosigner could apply to be released from their obligations in crashes what

actually happened was napping and creative arbitrary barriers and failed to disclose that very few borrowers never cheap cosigner release you can example one requirement for cosine of relief is making consecutive on time things but navigate apply this seemingly straightforward requirement in ways that reasonable borrowers could not have

foreseen in order to deny that that cosine of release so for example borrowers paint months ahead or not seem to have met that requirement of on-time payments so for example the borrower's monthly payment hundred bucks but she made a three-hundred-dollar payment one can advance especially a beautiful advance

for judaism within the bill 40 do for the next two months are organized than any additional payment responses zero dollar build national account that has a failure two consecutive on-time payments you know the bills not only current paid that similarly making payment too early for example making several payment and my january also did not call

in order to make a payment after the monthly two days both in the great theory when maddie's not existed on assessment questions now he has changed so many factors during the course of our for lengthy investigation we also found owen at the college with borrowers try to collect more than necessary to secure the delinquency but also thought to get

the next month's payment well refers to the legacies plus the next month's payment as the amount of credit amount do you suggest so we encourage any borrowers believe ben subjects these or any unfair and deceptive practices by sally made or by navien the file complaints with our office if you have any questions about

student loan servicing first post or websites we have a new student loan guy that's available on our website and social find has a lot of information specific for washing space bar words so in short we are asking the court order now going to stop these set of practices reform is servicing and collection practices to extend already done soldier

in court for investigation of course will be asked for restitution potential for loan forgiveness for students or harm i now the expresses i don't take one moment we take your session to mention that we have built a generic legislation in the session that we just dropped that we referred to us our student loan bill of

rights and it's been our event after investigating empty like naevius received many complaints from washington state or a solicitation to take some of these challenges through the student loan bill of rights so we're proposing a student loan bill of rights boston on the set aside by marckolius you get from the 31st district at linwood and

represented monica sonia and 40 nights in vancouver now we guess i think she's not want a summary the bills case here as well the answering questions over here thanks peter absolutely bill numbers information about those i will go to d kill other just mention a couple things establishes baseline standards for student loan services so it was like

by the same rules basically and giving example the bill provides to borrowers the right to have his or her payments credit by the servicer put in one day the payment being received or have a written explanation for why was not credited on time the legislation also create the student office if the person helps students who

are struggling with your services and their guests to go to some composite somebody help resolve the complaint and provide education about my command california nasty we think it's nice for washington join them the bottom line is going to be getting this office on the education side change a loss is also coming forth

besides this is significant case given the size mp4 targeting and we have to take any questions on the litigation and then get course will help answering questions you have home loans servicing really what you do when people on the insert already decorated with my cell phone and feel rich if it's so someone currently being serviced by nazi for

example base contact our office for having problems if you're currently being serviced by gabby and you're running into problems filed a complaint with our office that we receive more than hundred complaints thanks been sent here to chatting which is a lot in our office for any of these related to that now to specifics in more than a hundred

complaints from navigate specifically built from planks alpha oh and uh and building our case is getting more information devotion contact us if you're having problems with the tree with those since you want to repeat the questions of here and ben answer this one question about what what's the timeframe for those are for

the complaint states match to believe way to sell were military and disables borrowers also not placed in programs where they could kick some type of deferment when basically able to kind of shut right into collection with include payment there's actually long after you say hey which in protecting that happen so i

went to a military borrowers or stable folks who were borrowing things are equal to because i having certainly a lot of followers from the military half of protection hundreds of servicemembers navy has been the subject of course connection from the federal deposit insurance commission regarding vaccinations to abq servicemembers i

don't have the details of that with me right now that has been in your shoes barbers with disabilities and initially said that regardless of whether using the military whether you have disabilities whether you've got a big family or the low-income about an income-driven repayment program available available i showed four bars

with disabilities under federal law and you have the right to discharge understanding circumstances we do not right now have a point about in 99 if you're currently in collections from matter what 2,000 means if you're alleging normal people should not be in collections time what you do

every question life so that's the question that if you were hitting collections and nabi intention collector so broadly speaking you have two options to get all the defaults you've got to find them go to rehabilitation and consolidation navion and all these collections default federal student have an obligation to

explain those those options to you clearly and help you make a choice what's the best option for you with private loans it's a little bit trickier because you don't have the same sort of standardized better only federally mandated ball i would say you know that our credit counseling agencies available

beautiful nonprofit agencies i think people can even contacted and then you are having problems again i would say they should violent point of the question of reaction via of course the violin and one large around taking photos being files 19 county superior court and size resolution will be yet to be determined which is often the case

for the actions right let us say that there are not too many thousands of lost children potentially impacted and any relief would be in the minimally dollars so i think would be a fair summary prospectus but double set up as a limited on there'll be more specific but it's not going to you too broad sense of we do

good condition for a number of reasons and once you set up a high level moans and the question get that suit have great talent or significant and it's compounded by entities like navien la bicycles and make life very difficult for those borrowers to do this some of the tasks right want to have your

co-signer release you think you're following these rules that make your monthly payments on time tell you will know you ate three months in advance that doesn't count right you actually moved out i'm not giving you this information to recertify your information and not making clear what you must need to do

over and over repeated complaints and that's why we think it's significant education and in an area in our state and across our country that is a serious one that is those are growing burden of the federal government also waiting lawsuit against reality they have to go well for the local google reader along the ridge you've been wanting to assess

situation once you do the lawsuit problem at the federal psychic were financial protection bureau and of course the video noise has joined us today now look for cars and funny sometimes there's many states sometimes just that sometimes cfpb's of all it's always helpful riverboats who are four bolts at

a high level and make sure that you want to add on that ok yes so it would obviously itself window and i appreciate the fact that the financial protection bureau taking this as seriously as as we are how does your shoe different from theirs then so the question is which is a good question thanks for asking how did our

suit different consumer financial protection bureau and want to get high levels and that's certainly so the most fundamental differences are change covers telemental lending practices prior you to happen that's not part of the consumer financial protection and ours are often is really focused on washington armed with a complaint with a

complaint that we filed by you the examples of real people here in our stage for infected by definitely oh i think one more get double the vocab over 80 grand now you have response you sure you did you read i think you're able to read i i gotta take the feel

free to the guy was clear and well-designed time on several party following hope our civic engagement with regular cheese subjective instead this is probably supposed buildings on them based on the servicing standards white retro actively and five bully gifts of service the regulator certain there are consistent with the department of

education regulations and harm student loan borrowers including through higher homes yeah i get frustrated test ejecta here at target of one of our philosophy am you know we're back after about your success rate our location speaks for itself how about we bring these actions we

think there's something serious going on how i should investigate in this litigation constables ourselves of the lost symbol let me try to focus on school and take them as a quick question on the phone and i think you're free to jump in to get information identifying yourself for second grade you get out of here

sure i'll cherish little communications is now being the largest you sure in the country is it's not yours you looking at other literature research as well they are indeed the largest student loan servicer intensely i'm sorry i didn't mention that my talking like the beginning the brd the largest as for others as you probably know we have a

pulse in our office but not be able to think about any investigations we have in our office i can't speak to whether or not we have other indications that the that may or may not be going on but yesterday they are the largest room service in the united states references thank you anybody else on the calls like that has questions

i it comes to call from someone who's radio city talk to you again by driven yeah i would like to characterize a little bit more little things that were so egregious that they rose to the level of your having the violence suit would be to his little rattle on that side i think a private number of surface samples in my talks by commission based

on plane and so our complaint goes through numerous examples and i guess ben you tag in general maybe focus on what's already been said about the about the action i i would just say that we have detailed a number of added and consumer complaints and having engine fundamentally failed i in for duty of processing of buying

and allocating people things and these people are struggling to make money but that are actually doing the right things and sending the payment for people who are struggling we believe they navigated fundamentally failed getting and getting that means the programs are going to be most beneficial to that over the long term

one more question for both on the line of it's not where the final question is what it is gee bee girl he just talked about the wah i do it does annoy has also filed a prostitute they're taking mr. possible the extent to which you guys and hawaii officials

will work together on this or how to get about these for the state's the word for insulting sure then make actually the variable but the illinois watching for very close together simply 2013 08 2013 i have to be very day that we work very closely together and then i guess the measurement people speaking i don't particularly like other baseball maybe

even happen just from my camp when i get like me for my state my office and librarian of washington we have a robust profession game right we are one the leaders around tension bring this protection action on behalf of individual state i view that makes earlier issues related to human being especially important and we see the

volume complaint against ambien the scope of their action the volume of individuals are states are impacted in the harm done to them you know from my standpoint that makes it pretty a pretty straightforward decision to to initiate this litigation and if any of you want to have a solo in yeah i just add that like this office

illinois has taken a leadership role in addressing problems relating to two students i think it was a couple weeks ago we talked about her work in shutting down student debt adjusting company's first see how people do things that they can be for free frankly should be doing with the assistance of their services like maddie

illinois has brought quite a number of similar suits and minimum thanks and i goes i think it doesn't always one more on the phone will take a last one here one more but it's not correct approximately how many people do you think are effective times you and what has released vision expect and what

about fine sure so we don't have a precise number of unusual special section case but we viewed as many thousands of washingtonians sarah statement in terms of relief sauce valve will be seeing things like restitution for individual again common for any disruption we all speaking yes forgiveness for students

and for locally and of course at trial bbc penalties as well from the defendants so if your specials of the areas that we speaking terms of time frame that's always kills the litigation is the case itself re-trial helping your smile ranging between right so how high the station to actually get 1i make very carefully other significant resources

that go into the time that the whole team have been some culture here in the room with us while reason we're going to slice thoughtful about what cases we choose to litigate set my mind at ease with certain thresholds that in a great significance people to washington i have numbers well that

maybe also has a bar what was the day back in fashion that means that forgiveness but also accomplish all that time with students so i got me going to measure how much for you add to that which is not uncommon that they've been bringing you can add all set i really i think i think you're doing much as we can on that that

is settled but in all of our consumer protection cases that we bring this is a big one and will be speaking with friends and many many millions dollars is that a high level this place literally but it will be when you have many thousands of washingtonians was 250 patient place lots of plane so deceptive business practices for that individual

has a state we can see for any violation any single violation of section we can speak for example of two thousand dollars per violation for each individual violation right in this case we have many thousands of washington's we think we're ever contacted local interactions with gabby and the other to venice have number they can add up to

about heading into the final you want to characterize not use that name yes i would say success is unfair and predatory lending practice so well thank you for being here really appreciate those online been are happy to grandma take any questions you might have one-on-one really appreciate being

here and greatly appreciated with the benefit consumer protection anymore here is that support eight days and of course important thank you all very much appreciated