Financial schemes and scams were most frequently reported to have stemmed from a phone call.
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If you get an email, letter or call about student loan debt forgiveness, pause before you send along any of your personal information.
It could be a scam.
Amid a rise in calls for broad-based student loan debt forgiveness, the pandemic-related pause in payments for federal loans and the government erasing balances for borrowers from specific schools, claims by companies purporting to help people cancel their own higher-education debt have ticked up.
“It’s kind of a prime moment for scams because I think they’re capitalizing on the confusion that surrounds what is happening with student loan policy and potential forgiveness,” said Bridget Haile, head of borrower success at Summer, a company that helps borrowers simplify and save on their student debt.
The coronavirus pandemic has also given scammers more ways to take advantage of people who have been financially hurt over the last year and a half.
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“Scammers really prey on the financially vulnerable and so with the pandemic, many people have been struggling financially and they are looking for financial relief,” said Kristen Evans, chief of the students and young consumers section at…
