Greg's Corner

New scam promises student loan forgiveness

With the cost of college tuition always rising and salaries largely remaining stagnant, we have a generation of college graduates who may work their whole lives just to pay back their student loans. People of that generation have also been found to be just as vulnerable to scams as their grandparents’ generation. Far be it for scammers to not try to take advantage of those two facts.

According to Wikipedia, Navient is a U.S. corporation whose operations include servicing and collecting student loans. They recently settled a lawsuit over student debt forgiveness, however, the settlement doesn’t provide relief for those who owe money to Navient. But the scammers are hoping to cash in on the confusion over the lawsuit settlement.

Scammers are posing as Navient employees and calling people telling them that due to the settlement the debtors are eligible to have their student debt partially or fully forgiven. There’s only one thing the debtors need to do. You just need to give your Social Security number and pay a fee to transfer the debt to the Department of Education.

Not just any fee mind you, the scammers are asking for monthly payments from your debit or credit card to maintain the loan forgiveness. So, while the scammers are taking monthly payments from you, nothing is happening with your student debt. So not only are you paying these scammers monthly payments but you’ll probably be ignoring your student loan payments leading to a series of financial nightmares that no one should have to go through.

However, there is hope. The settlement made it that if your loan payments are being collected by Navient, you can contact them to see if you are, in fact, eligible for loan forgiveness.

Companies like Navient aren’t going to just call you out of the blue to possibly lose the profits they’ve already gained. Unsolicited phone calls that promise you a way out of debt are almost always too good to be true.