How To Avoid Student Loan Forgiveness Scams In Pennsylvania

Given that the cost of university education has skyrocketed since the time the current generation of college students was born, while an increasing percentage of well-paying jobs require a bachelor’s degree, plenty of debt-ridden graduates would venture to say that student loans are a racket.  Some outspoken journalists would make a similar claim about university education in general.  Many working adults have chosen income-driven repayment programs as the lesser of two evils, thinking that defaulting on their loans is their only other option; because income-driven repayment programs usually require you to make payments for 25 years, it means forgoing all impulse purchases until you are almost at retirement age.  What if someone told you that there was an easier way to make your student loans disappear?  Would you laugh and tell them to get lost, or would you feel a glimmer of hope?  Scammers are betting that Pennsylvania consumers struggling to keep up with payments on their student loans will have the latter reaction.  Before you get so desperate that you are willing to give your social security number to a scammer out of the faint hope that doing so could make your student loans go away, contact a Pennsylvania consumer law attorney.

How to Spot a Student Loan Forgiveness Scam

The federal government offers several loan forgiveness programs; most of these have existed for years and require you to jump through a lot of hoops before any of your debt obligations get erased.  Student loan forgiveness was a much talked about issue in last year’s presidential election, and since President Biden took office, the federal government has forgiven some student loans and floated ideas about other paths to loan forgiveness.  Scammers have seized this opportunity to tempt borrowers with talk of loan forgiveness programs that do not exist; these calls and emails are just a way to get victims to reveal their social security numbers and financial information.

If you get an unsolicited email or phone call inviting you to enroll in a student loan forgiveness program, this is what you should do:

• Spend time researching and verifying information before you respond, if you respond at all. If it is a phone call, get off the phone as quickly as possible; you can ask for a call back number if you think you will want to call back.
• Do not respond to student loan forgiveness emails that do not come from “.gov” email addresses.
• Investigate the purported loan forgiveness program’s web presence. It is a red flag if the program has no website or a poorly written one.
• When in doubt, ask your loan servicer if the purported loan forgiveness program actually exists and whether there are any risks associated with enrolling in it.

Reach Out to an Attorney for Help

There are no easy solutions to the student loan crisis, but a Philadelphia debt collection abuse attorney can help you figure out which debts are the easiest to settle or discharge and help you address those debts first.  Contact Louis S. Schwartz at CONSUMERLAWPA.com to set up a free, confidential consultation.

Resource:

wgal.com/article/pennsylvania-consumers-warned-of-student-loan-forgiveness-scams/37622101