3.1.21 spoke with a gentlemen claiming to be with verified docuservice who work for Dept of education with forbearance for student loans. they were calling from 949.288.5752 Ref3# 70742. The whole set up sounded like a scam this man told me they worked for the Dept of Education and if i had Fedloans that they could get me a better deal on forbearance thru their company. Stated that if i tried to go thru fedloan they wouldn’t do it because they aren’t in the business of assisting with getting people forbearance approval. It ll sounded suspect to me, especially when everyone is in forbearance until Sept 2021.
Victim Location 70119
Type of a scam Credit Repair/Debt Relief
Due to Covid-19, my husband is unemployed and I am the only one working to pay bills. I reached out to my government funded student loan servicer and informed them that I wanted to enroll in the 0% interests no loan payment for at least the next two months. The representative told me he would submit the paperwork and later I would see that I would have a zero balance. This week I received a call stating that my loans were eligible for forgiveness and to give a call and mention my case file 6F18CR2. I returned the call yesterday (4/17/2020) at approximately 5pm and I spoke with Vaughn Schwalbe and he told me that I qualified for loan forgiveness through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. He gave me information stating I would only pay $199 for 5 months and afterwards $89 for 120 payments. Initially I thought this would occur after the forbearance. He sent me an email with the Department of Education information on it. He was able to tell me my correct loan servicer ( without me giving him the information) and verified the total amount of the loan. When he recalled factual information, I thought it was real. He told me that he was sending me an email from the Department of Education that had my FSI (federal student loan) number. He asked me to read the number to him and I did. He asked where did I work and I told him I was employed at Veterans Affairs. He stated that I qualified for PSLF program and that he needed to verify employment and pay stubs. He was never given info regarding pay stubs. Then he asked to verify my name, date of birth, maiden name, and address. He said he was sending another email which would be the forms to verify employment. On tht email, the actual form for the PSLF application was included. This form was the correct form because I applied for it in the past and was told to resend multiple times. Since I was familiar with the form,I knew that part was authentic. However, there was also a document on there stating that I needed to sign stating that I would pay a loan totaling $10,680. When I questened why there was a clause to pay $10,000, he stated the company would pay off my student loans and all I would be responsible for is the $10,000. He stated he needed a credit card on file so he could draft payments. I asked if he was trying to scam me and he stated no and that he is a third party entity working for the Department of Education. They just needed a card to start the process. I have him a gift card number **** **** **** **** (visa) with an expiration of 06/28 and CVV *** because he gave me a reason to doubted that this was real. I informed him that although I am a physical therapist, I am still a federal employee. He stated he was not trying to scam me and if I wanted to be sure I could download credit Karma. He encouraged me to sign the document and I stated no. I wanted to read it and call the Department of Education to verify this company. I stayed I would call back next Wednesday after I spoke with the Department of Education. He encouraged me to call Monday instead of Wednesday. We hung up and I googled Vaughn’s name and I saw he had a history of forgery. I went to the company’s website and called back and asked the person who picked up the phone to verify what business it was. He knew who I was and that I had spoken with Vaugn. I told him I was verifying if this company and the services offered were real. I also informed him that I googled Vaughn’s name and told him that forgery came up. He tried to make me believe the company was real and they are trying to help students. We hung up. Afterwards, I froze my credit with Experian and on 4/18/20 I froze my credit with Equifax. I decided to verify the business on this website and I did not see anything so I wanted to file a complaint so a formal investigation can be performed. If they are ripping students off during a crisis, they need to be dealt with criminally. I have great credit and need to protect my identity. At this time, I have a lot of financial pressure so I realize I made poor decisions while speaking with the representatives. Vaugn sent me a text from 717-475-1894, the phone number that called earlier this week regarding the program is 661-724-4971. Please investigate. I will call the Department of Education on Monday . You request in the question below that I attach an example of what I received, but the document is in DocuSign. I am willing to forward all of the emails since I can’t send the PDF below.
I work for the department of education in a loan servicing office. All months that you are on the forb count towards pslf payments. In order to qualify you have to make 120 on time payments under a qualifying plan while employed at a job that qualifies as a public service. All the months you are on the forb qualify even though you arent required to pay. We also will fill this paperwork out for you and send it to you for free to get you on one of these. Also you will not apply for your public service loan forgiveness until you are close to your 120 on time payments. To help put that into perspective that is 10 years of on time payments. These people are definitely a scam. If you need help your servicer should be able to assist you.
This is in response to this complaint.. In our defense, we record all our calls for quality assurance for this specific reason. We mentioned multiple times that this is not an overnight process and you can’t expect to be in your program when you go to sleep and wake up the following day, if anyone promised you that its wrong! Please understand if you would like a copy of the entire 65 minute conversation you had with the representative Vaughn, we’d be more than happy to give you that. Also the first page of the documents you signed state our business name nothing relating to the dept of ed. 2nd page explains that these are fees that we charge you just like a tax cpa would to file your paperwork. We are a document preparation company that needs to stay and operate in business meaning its not a free service if you go through us. The very first signature stated what we are doing by representing you. 2nd signature is authorization that our company fees, payment dates and also payment amounts are and being processed and taken by us. 3rd Signature stated we act as a power of attorney on your behalf to do all negotiations with the lenders and the dept of ed, 6th signature is literally a 3RD PARTY AUTHORIZATION. Theres multiple sections all over the documents you reviewed and signed stating this. If you want a copy of the recording to show you are incorrect please do not hesitate to call us back to resolve the matter. There is no need to bash on a small business just because YOU don’t want to pay for the services.
I am also a client of theirs but they took great care of me and I am in my program. I don’t understand what your complaint is? They stated that they are a 3rd party company just like the agreements we signed stated multiple times. It is a service that I think is well worth the money. You joined and chargeback your funds 3 days after joining. If you expect these things to be done overnight you will always just be skeptic to people that actually are there to assist us. Thankfully they did help me but during the first 5 months of payments, yes I was scared to but you just assuming that because its not done overnight is crazy.. nothing is done that fast