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Department of Education scams

Last updated September 18, 2026

The short answer

Student loan forgiveness scams charge a fee for something that is free. Every genuine federal repayment, consolidation and forgiveness programme is available at no cost at studentaid.gov, and charging a fee in advance for student loan relief is illegal.

Federal student loan policy has changed repeatedly and confusingly over the past several years — payment pauses, restarts, new repayment plans, litigated forgiveness programmes — and each announcement produces a wave of scam calls, because a borrower genuinely cannot be expected to know what the current rules are. The pitch works by attaching itself to something real that was in the news, and the ask is always the same: a fee, or your FSA ID.

How Department of Education scams work

  1. 1

    Fee-for-free-service

    A company offers to enrol you in forgiveness or an income-driven repayment plan for an up-front fee plus a monthly charge. Everything they do, you can do free at studentaid.gov in under an hour.

  2. 2

    FSA ID harvesting

    You are asked for your Federal Student Aid ID "to process the application". With it they can change your contact details, redirect correspondence, and take over the loan relationship entirely.

  3. 3

    Payment redirection

    You are told to make payments to the company instead of your servicer while the application "processes". The payments are kept and the loans go delinquent.

  4. 4

    Urgency around real news

    Scripts reference genuine policy changes and invented deadlines — a programme "closing this month" — to force a decision before anyone checks studentaid.gov.

Warning signs

  • You are charged a fee for loan forgiveness, consolidation or repayment enrolment
  • Anyone asks for your FSA ID or account password
  • You are told to stop paying your servicer and pay them instead
  • A programme has an urgent deadline you cannot find on studentaid.gov
  • The caller promises immediate or total forgiveness
  • You are pressured to sign a power of attorney over your loans
  • The organisation has an official-sounding name with no .gov address

Examples

$899 for a free form

A borrower pays $899 up front plus $39 a month to a "student loan relief" company for enrolment in an income-driven plan. The company submits the same free form available at studentaid.gov. The monthly fee continues for two years after the enrolment completes.

Payments that went nowhere

A company tells a borrower to redirect $310 monthly payments to them while a forgiveness application processes. Eight months later the loans are 240 days delinquent, the credit damage is done, and the company has stopped responding. The Department of Education had no application on file.

What to do

  • Do everything at studentaid.gov. Every federal programme is free there.
  • Never pay anyone for student loan help. Advance fees for loan relief are illegal.
  • Never share your FSA ID. It is the key to your entire loan record.
  • Contact your servicer directly — their number is in your studentaid.gov account.
  • If you signed with a company, revoke any power of attorney in writing and tell your servicer.

Report it to Department of Education

Report student loan scams to the Federal Student Aid Feedback Center at studentaid.gov, and to the FTC. Everything on studentaid.gov is free.

Our step-by-step guide: Federal Student Aid

Getting your money back

Fees paid by card are disputable as services not rendered, and state attorneys general have shut down many of these operations with restitution — report to yours, because those cases are built from complaints. If you gave up your FSA ID, change it immediately at studentaid.gov and check the contact details and repayment plan on your account for changes. If payments were redirected, contact your servicer at once to discuss delinquency: servicers can sometimes apply retroactive forbearance or a repayment-plan correction when fraud is documented.

Frequently asked questions

Is student loan forgiveness ever something you pay for?

No. Every federal forgiveness, consolidation and income-driven repayment programme is free to apply for at studentaid.gov. Charging an advance fee for student loan relief is illegal under the Telemarketing Sales Rule, so the fee itself tells you what you are dealing with.

What is an FSA ID and why does it matter?

It is your login for the entire federal student aid system — applications, loan records, repayment plans, contact details. Giving it away lets someone change your address so correspondence never reaches you, and take over the relationship with your servicer. Never share it, with anyone.

How do I find my actual loan servicer?

Log in at studentaid.gov; your servicer and their contact details are listed there. That is the authoritative source. A company that contacts you first claiming to be your servicer, or to work with them, should be checked against that page before anything else happens.

Other companies scammers impersonate

Scams reuse their scripts across brands. If you were contacted about Department of Education, these are the guides worth reading next.

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