By Carla Astudillo | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Incessant phone calls. Misapplied payments. Surprise high interest rates.

These are just a taste of the complaints submitted by New Jersey student loan borrowers to the federal government and made public by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

But that database, a massive warehouse of complaints against financial services companies including student loan companies, may soon disappear.

Last month, Mick Mulvaney, the acting director of the bureau, said he wanted to shut down public access to the database, a move that would appease lenders who don't like the airing of their dirty laundry.

The bureau is currently taking public comments until June 4 on whether it should end public access.

Don't Edit

How it works

The consumer bureau was created back in 2011 in the aftermath of the financial crisis as a federal watchdog for consumers.

Since then, the agency has collected more than a million consumer complaints and sent them to the appropriate companies for response. After scrubbing personal information, the bureau publishes complaints to the searchable, public database for other consumers to examine.

The financial industry has criticized the database for containing unverified facts alleged in complaints. Watchdog groups, however, argue the database is one way to keep banks and other financial companies accountable.

In addition to shielding the database from public view, Mulvaney recently announced plans to downsize the unit that deals with student loan complaints.

“[The unit] cleaned up some of the abuses,” said Persis Yu, director of the National Consumer Law Center's Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project. “It’s only been in existence for a couple of years, but they still have a lot of to do — a lot more work needs to be done.”

All of this has deeply worried advocates who fear the student loan industry’s bottom line will outweigh their service to loan borrowers.

“The servicing industry needs monitoring and regulation,” said Beverly Brown Ruggia, financial justice organizer for New Jersey Citizen Action. “These companies have misplaced and, in my opinion, unfortunate incentives.”

We analyzed about 1,944 student loan complaints from New Jersey borrowers in the bureau's database.

Here’s what we found:

Don't Edit

1. Navient is the company most complained about

The company with the most complaints was, far and away, Navient.

Out of 1,944 total complaints from New Jersey student loan borrowers, 861 of them involved the student loan servicer. That’s about 44 percent.

Navient, which was formerly part of Sallie Mae, currently handles loans for 6.78 million borrowers nationwide.

The second-leading company, American Education Services/Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, handles 8.1 million student loan borrowers but was the subject of 172, or 8.8 percent, of complaints from New Jersey borrowers.

Navient is currently facing multiple lawsuits alleging the company misapplied payments and gave out misleading lending information, leading struggling borrowers toward multiple forbearances, among other abusive practices. The company has denied any wrongdoing.

The lender with the third-highest number of complaints was the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, HESAA, which is New Jersey's student loan program.

It received a total of 134 complaints, or 6.9 percent.

A 2016 ProPublica/New York Times investigation found that HESAA had some of the most severe repayment rules, giving few breaks to struggling borrowers, including those who have died.

Don't Edit

2. The types of loans NJ borrowers complained about

Since 2012, the majority of the complaints, about 56.5 percent, were for non-federal loans, as in a loan not through the federal government. These include private loans through banks or financial institutions or through state agencies.

Federal loans made up only 526, or about 27 percent, of complaints.

It may seem like non-federal loans made up the highest share of complaints, but that's because the CFPB collected only non-federal loan data until 2016, when the agency began taking complaints on federal loans.

That’s why, in 2017, there were total of 353 federal loan complaints from New Jersey borrowers compared to only 171 non-federal loan complaints.

Because more than 90 percent of student loans are from the federal government, experts expect the number of complaints about federal loans to increase.

Don't Edit

3. Top issues include dealings with lenders and misapplied payments

Among the most common complaints were "trouble with how payments were handled,” with 322 complaints, followed by "received bad information about my loan” and “can’t decrease my monthly payments”.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

4. Consumers rarely gets a favorable outcome

When the the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau gets a consumer complaint, it sends it to the company in question, which then has up to 15 days to respond.

Responses were usually timely, but rarely benefitted the borrowers.

A whopping 86.3 percent of complaints were “closed with explanation”. Only 207 out of the 1,944 complaints were closed and received either monetary or non-monetary relief.

Companies also have the option to make a public response in regards to the complaint. The top company public response was “Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law.”

Don't Edit

5. Consumers usually don't dispute the outcome

After the company issues its response, a student loan borrower has the option to dispute it.

In New Jersey, only about 14 percent of student loan borrowers chose to do so.

About 62.5 percent of the responses to complaints were subsequently not disputed.

Despite the unfavorable outcomes for consumers, Persis Yu of the National Consumer Law Center still recommends submitting complaints to the bureau.

“If the experience itself was so negative and harmful, it’s still useful feedback for them to get,” Yu said. “Even if it’s not the result that the consumer wants.”

Don't Edit

Jessica Mazzola | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Read more N.J. data reporting