Jun 10, 2017
Out of interest, I picked up one of the calls today and spoke to an agent. Apparently, for some students who attended for-profit colleges (I went to a private art school for a 2nd degree), there are open complaints against the schools and they will fill out the paperwork to apply for loan forgiveness under these complaints. I didn't qualify, but there was never a discussion of paying them. This piqued my interest,, so I asked very candidly how they stay in business. It seems the attorneys who are litigating against the schools pay for each student they successfully get into the program. They also offered to fill out forbearance and deferral forms for me for my Federal student loans. I found this kind of silly, because you can access these forms online very easily.
Mostly, the agents don't seem to be very knowledgeable or well-trained. I work in finance (currently in credit card collections actually) and from my experience I wouldn't qualify this as a scam. But it does seem shady that they are being paid by the attorneys...