Student Loan Financial Assistance Fraudulent Loan Assistance Class Action

People tend to repay their student loan debt over long periods of time, and some find it a struggle. This class action brings suit against Student Loan Financial Assistance (SLFA) and its highest-ranking officer, Jerry Yirenkyi. The complaint alleges that SLFA and Yirenkyi “misrepresent the cost and features of federal loan repayment programs in order to extract fees from struggling borrowers.”

Two classes have been defined for this action:

• The Nationwide Class is all persons in the US who, within the applicable statute of limitations period, used SLFA’s student debt relief assistance services.
• The Nationwide EFTA Subclass is all persons in the US whose debit card or bank account was charged fees by the defendants in this case during the applicable statute of limitations period.

The complaint alleges that SLFA makes misleading statements, suggesting it works for or is affiliated with the Department of Education (ED), the government, or the customers’ loan servicers.

According to the complaint, they “purport to provide debt relief services to consumers with student loan debt, falsely claiming that they can save consumers substantial funds by getting the consumers into loan repayment plans that will substantially reduce the customers’ monthly payment and/or completely eliminate their debt.”

They ask for an up-front fee of around $1,000 to consolidate the customers’ loans and put them in a repayment program, the complaint says. It asserts, “These fees are not applied to the loan and in many instances the free service of consolidating a loan through the ED does not transpire.”

In fact, people can ask for student loan repayment programs, and even forgiveness programs, through the ED or their servicers at no cost. They can get into income-driven repayment (IDR) programs without the help of any other party and without paying any fees at all. The IDR programs calculate payments based on income and family size.

The ED’s IDR programs require that income and family size be recertified every year, and the monthly payment will fluctuate based on these things. Because of this, none of them guarantee a fixed, reduced payment for more than a year. So, the complaint alleges, SLFA’s claim that they can get customers permanently reduced monthly payments is false.

The complaint claims SLFA takes customers’ payment information and begins taking installment payments before enrolling customers in a program. SLFA also charges a monthly fee. The complaint alleges, “Defendants falsely represent that this amount will be the consumer’s new, reduced monthly loan payment.” However, the complaint says, SLFA keeps these fees and does not apply them to the student loans.

According to the complaint, it takes months before the customers realize that none of their payments to SLFA have gone to their loans.

Causes of action include negligent misrepresentation, false advertising, theft, and violation of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA), among other things.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Conversion, Deceptive Advertising, EFTA, Negligent Misrepresentation