Victim Location 90703
Type of a scam Credit Repair/Debt Relief
The phone scammer leaves a message that will give a different person’s name example. Hi, this Sharon Jones and I’m calling in reference to your federal student loan. I need to discuss your repayment options with some new changes that have taken affect recently, so if you please be sure to give me a call back my number is 866-295-9119 and I’m going to give your reference number if you would please have this handy when you call back that will make things just a lot easier. And then they give the reference number.
I ignored the first call but then they called a second time and at the time my family didn’t know it was a scam and neither did I. They thought it was important regarding my student loan. I called and everything went downhill. I thought they were so legit, and the guy was so personal that I gave most of my information SS#, birthdate, amount I made last year on my income statement, my email address, checking account #, the city I lived in. They claim to place me on a public service loan forgiveness program which sounded great, because of my income I have not been able to pay off my loan. I would pay $184.00 for the first 5 months and then $69.83 for 115 months. I signed documents via electronic signature. They mention that my lender who is under the Department of Education is doing predatory lending and that I should stop communicating with them and that through their legal dept they were going to cease and desist them charging me accrued interest, and all communication about my loan should be through them. I didn’t notice until after the fact that they do not have a website, address, city, and state to address them by mail.
I did not become suspicious until I got the same exact call by a different person with a different refernce # which I thought was strange if I had already signed up on July 8th. the lightbulb finally came on and I thought I was a victim of a scam and fraud. I immediately put part of the conversation in and found outr that back in April of this year and maybe even last year that people were saying that the student loan scam repayment phone call is making it’s rounds again and it was the exact conversation.
I first called my loan provider and on their website the first thing they had was an alert about warning of student loan scams, which was not there last week when I made a payment to them. Second, I closed my account and went to the bank to get a new account number and debit card. I called the second number and a person by the name of Jason for documentsdoneitright told me that my account was not with them and explained that I was scammed. I told him a little of what they said and he said first I would not qualify for a public loan forgivennes if I was not a full-time teacher which I am not and they cannot come up with a certain amount because you have to be recertified by givining your household number and income by being certified each year. He said they were the number one legit student loan provider for government forgiveness in California and I can looked them up line. When I went to your site, I saw that they are not certified under you and many people called them a scammer.
I filed a complaint with the FTC, and I kept calling them to cancel my agreement and opt out of the forgiveness program. I had to call twice on Wednesday July 10th in the morning and each time the representative would say the agents are busy and will call me back. Only one time did an agent call me back, but I was at work and could not return the call. I called back on Thursday July 11th and spoke to another representative and ask if I could speak to Ryan, the representative said that Ricky Franco would be helping me. I explained that I am not ready to do the forgiveness program and that I want to opt out of it and cancel my agreement due to unforeseen financial obligations. He said if I lower the amount to $69.83 would that help (that is the number that I was going to pay after the first initial five payments of $184.00 so is that a hidden fee that they do not tell you about). I said no and he proceeded to say they could start garnishing your wages (I’m not sure who he was talking about), I said I would just like to please cancel. I got a text and an email confirmation that my account was closed, and no further payments will be collected from my account. The program was not suppose to start until July 29th.
I received an alert today that yesterday an amount of $182.00 was tgrying to post to my closed account. I called my bank and explained what happen and they said I will not be responsible for that amount plus once the account is closed the amount will just bounce back to them. I know it had to be them because I do not have any other merchants asking for that amount of money. When I called them today and said I wanted to speak to an agent about money being taken out of my account and it was already closed nobody returned to my call. When I tried calling back my phone kept getting dropped by their number. They are supposed to be open until 4:30pm PST.
Please let people know about this unsavory company.