The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warns former students in America about loan scammers that could exploit the project of US president Joe Biden’s loan forgiveness program.
The loan forgiveness program allows low-earning former students with debt cancellation held by the United State Department of Education. Currently, the application process for the program has opened. The application form is available on the main website and will take a few minutes to finish.
The loan scammers target this newly introduced program.
The federal law enforcement agency warned the students of possible loan scammers attempting to exploit applicants. The advisory stated that the attackers could provide entrances to the Loan Forgiveness program.
Additionally, the fraudsters could contact targets through emails, text messages, phone calls, or online chat services. The US Department of Education also warned the applicants against these phishing scams.
Based on reports, the scammers could send links to their targets through several channels. These channels will enable the fraudsters to request their target to provide information such as names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, and social media handles, among others.
The scammers’ website might collect various financial information, such as bank account and routing numbers. The threat actors could also acquire digital wallet addresses and credit or debit card numbers if unaware visitors provide them using this scam.
Furthermore, there could also be attempts from phone scammers that will pose as a bank representative from the loan program or a Department of Education personnel. These strategies could attempt to deceive targets trying to apply for the US loan project.
The US government emphasised that their Loan Forgiveness program will not require any processing fee for any currency. Hence, visitors should be wary of websites with processing fees since it is a major red flag.
The FBI also advised people to verify the provided websites of any emails or texts sent by US government websites to review their legitimacy. Lastly, the law enforcement agency encourages potential victims to report these attacks if they are unfortunately affected in the future.
