Now that the US Department of Education has opened up applications for federal student loan forgiveness, the FBI is warning that scammers will almost certainly use this news to their advantage.
Announced back in August of this year, the Student Loan Debt Relief Plan will provide up to $20,000 in debt cancellation for Pell Grant recipients and up to $10,000 for non-Pell Grant recipients. While this is good news for borrowers, it gives scammers the perfect lure to use in phishing campaigns and other attacks.
A similar situation occurred throughout 2020 and 2021 when scammers used stimulus checks distributed by the U.S. government to trick potential victims into giving up their passwords, Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal information. These stimulus check scams were quite successful and all manner of cybercriminals may try to deploy similar tactics using President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan as a lure.
The perfect opportunity for scammers
According to the FBI, it is highly likely that scammers will try to defraud borrowers seeking student loan forgiveness.
One of the ways in which they might do this is by claiming to help borrowers access the Federal Student Loan Forgiveness program through emails, text messages, over the phone and even by mail.
The FBI also believes that they will create fake websites in an attempt to steal financial and other sensitive information from borrowers. By including malicious links in…
