As millions of Americans gear up to pay back their federal student loans, the Federal Trade Commission reminds Missourians about scams that sounds too good to be true.
Nathan Nash is an attorney handling consumer protection matters for the FTC. Instead of being roped into a federal student loan scam, he says to check the StudentAid.gov website.
“You can usually know a government website with that .gov ending to check for those repayment options that are free,” says Nash. “I mean, one way to detect scammers is that they’ll ask you to pay for something that’s normally free. So, we really encourage people, you know, with student loans and any government programs, you can go to the government website and look to see what your options are.”
The FTC has recently stopped scammers whom the agency says organized a scam to prey on students seeking debt relief.
“We see people impersonating a number of folks including companies and the government,” according to Nash. “Often these scams happen where someone poses as a representative of the utility company or of a government agency where someone asks for an immediate payment or to share personal information, kind of banking on the trust that that company or that government agency usually has.”
In that case, the scammers pretended to be with the U.S. Department of Education, using deceptive loan forgiveness promises, and claimed they were offering relief under the “Biden Loan Forgiveness” plan to lure students. They were able to collect millions in upfront fees.
Click here for more information in that case.
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