Federal Student Loan Forgiveness Scams

Members of the community have reported receiving scam emails and phone calls purporting to be from legitimate student loan debt relief representatives.  Federal Student Aid, an office of the U. S. Department of Education, provides the following information to identify and avoid student loan forgiveness scams.

What do the common scams look like?

• Aggressive Advertising Language
• Promises That Are Too Good To Be True
• Asking for Log-in Info
• Typos
• Unofficial Addresses or Phone Numbers

Important Things to Know

• The Department of Education or their partners will never ask for your StudentAid.gov ID password.
• Some debt relief companies will charge a fee for services that you and your loan servicer can work out together, for free, including:
  • lower your monthly loan payment,
  • consolidate multiple federal student loans,
  • switch to a new repayment plan, or
  • see if you qualify for loan forgiveness.

What You Should do if You Think You’ve Been Scammed

• Contact your federal loan servicer to make sure no unwanted actions were taken on your loans.
• Contact your bank or credit card company to stop payments to the company that is scamming you.
• Submit a complaint to the Department of Education, the Federal Trade Commission, and/or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• If you find yourself involved in a scam that concerns your StudentAid.gov account, or if you’ve shared your FSA ID details with someone whom you now suspect to be a scammer, be sure to log in and change your account password as soon as possible. 

For more information, call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-433-3243 or visit https://studentaid.gov/.