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2004-05 College Fairs |
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Help Students Avoid This Financial Aid Scam It was brought to our attention recently that someone claiming to be a representative of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) is calling students, offering them grants or scholarships, and asking for their bank account numbers so a processing fee can be charged. Specifically, the caller tells the student he understands the student has federal student loans and offers to replace the loans with an $8,000 grant. The caller explains that a processing fee must be charged and obtains the student's checking account information. We urge you to remind your students that there is no ED program to replace loans with grants and that there is no processing fee to obtain student grants from ED. Furthermore, students should never provide their bank account or credit card information over the phone unless they initiated the call and trust the company they are calling. We recommend that you warn college students and college-bound students about this scam. A student who is a victim of this or a similar scam should take the following steps:
For information about identity theft prevention, you and your students may visit www.ed.gov/misused. For information about preventing financial aid scams, visit www.studentaid.ed.gov/lsa.
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Page Last Modified 09/29/2004
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