Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Suddenly Stops Selling Student Loans (bloomberg.com)
"The promotion has ended," a bank spokesperson said. After more than a year of preparation, Amazon's partnership with Wells Fargo to sell student loans barely lasted six weeks. An anonymous reader quotes Bloomberg:
It's another black eye for Wells Fargo's student loan business, which just last week agreed to pay $3.6 million to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to settle claims that it misled borrowers, illegally charged certain fees, and processed payments in a way designed to maximize late fees. Wells Fargo neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.
The article cites a consumer advocate who says both Amazon and Wells Fargo were hiding the high costs of the loans, as well as their inflexible terms for repayment, in a "cynical attempt to dupe current students." The Washington Post noted that interest rates for community colleges and for-profit institutions "can climb to nearly 14%."
The article cites a consumer advocate who says both Amazon and Wells Fargo were hiding the high costs of the loans, as well as their inflexible terms for repayment, in a "cynical attempt to dupe current students." The Washington Post noted that interest rates for community colleges and for-profit institutions "can climb to nearly 14%."
Stuff that matters.....
"The article sites a consumer advocate who both Amazon and Wells Fargo were hiding the high costs of the loans"
What? Presumably the article actually "Cites" this consumer advocate who "claims" both... perhaps?
Does any editing actually occur here?
One of the presidential candidates has promised they would fix the student loan crisis upon becoming president. If Amazon has some precognition that this candidate will likely become the next president (and I believe they do) and the president-elect does what they promised (and I believe that they will), or that there's an onerous interest hike and regulation in the works (more likely than not) then there's no big money left in student loans and they pulled out.
I'm on mobile and I keep getting auto-redirected away from Slashdot to scammy websites.
Once again Warren Buffet screws America
Not only do they engage in fraud, but also money laundering. To this day, they and HSBC and BoA, etc. etc. etc. remain immune and untouchable. And we continue to stand by and reelect the politicians that also benefit, totally distracted by *he who shall not be named*, not that anybody cared beforehand.
It is probably a wise move for Amazon to keep its distance, lest they get caught up in this tornado and lose everything.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Banks are incredibly greedy, no doubt. They're always looking for new fees and new ways to prey on consumers. I nearly took out a student loan with Wells Fargo a few years ago, and I'm really glad I didn't. Federal loans are pretty sketchy, too, though. It's not the government, necessarily, that's the problem. The issue is that you get assigned to a student loan servicer. Nelnet is mine, and they're a complete disaster. I've always made my payments on time, and pay a little extra along the way, but they've claimed I've missed a payment when I didn't. Then they tried to tell me I was wrong when I claimed I didn't miss a payment. Finally, I asked which payment was late and, not being able to tell me, they admitted they were wrong. The next month they again claimed I'd missed a payment and, upon me threatening to report them to the BBB and attorney general and threatening to sue them, the problem magically got fixed. I've concluded that ALL student loans are sketchy, and I can't wait to pay mine off and never look back.
"Wells Fargo neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing."
Because of course they didn't.
What's good for the banks is good for America.
When the banks do it, it's not illegal.
Sarcasm, etc etc
The CFPB fine probably ate enough of the projected profits to make the program not worth continuing (which means they'd have to fix the issues).
Impressive that the stage coach is still blatantly robbing people.
The impossible to discharge needs to go away
Fortunately in the country I live, the state offers student loans with low rents (something entirely against the US ideology that the private sector has to do everything). If you can't it pay back in 15 years (minimum payback amount depends on your income) you don't have to pay back the restant. It is considered an investment in a highly educated population, which is itself good for the economy. Add to that that university here is much cheaper than in the US (college money is about 2000 euro's per year, plus costs of books etc.) so the amounts you need to loan are much lower as well. You can borrow money from a bank for your study if you wish of course, but since there is no demand for such loans because the state loans are cheaper they are not even offered.
This causes that almost anyone with the capacity and willingness to do so can get a batchelor and master degree independent of the income of their parents. We don't need H1B imports.
Instead of getting all upset, people should then simply take the federal loan instead of the Wells loans. If they can't get the federal loans for some reason, then it seems unreasonable to demand that private banks match federal rates.
So, if you want to take out a 7% loan to get a $2400 Nanodegree on Udacity, Pauline wants to stop you; she wants you to put that on your credit card at 20% or, "better" yet, spend tens of thousands of dollars and waste several years of your life at the kind of institutions she is in bed with. And she probably thinks that she is doing you some good by forcing you to do this.
This is a textbook example of why costs in the US educational system are spiraling out of control:
Students will bitch and moan regardless of (how good) the terms of the loan are and do what they can to not pay that money back.
The education industry part of the macro-parasite (comprised of government, finance, and business - and which has as one goal: the gathering to itself of all the assets of the mass of people), has identified and targeted the college education as an asset of the mass due to the increase of future earnings that can be expected with a college degree. I've read that increase in future earnings can be a million dollars over a lifetime. Universities and businesses want that money and they will engage in any immoral or illegal activity they have to in order to get it. Tuitions continue to rise in a time of low inflation and low interest rates. There is now over a trillion dollars in student loan debt. That is more than all credit card debt. The mass is being preyed upon with an avidity and efficiency never before seen by man.
E Proelio Veritas.
The Movement for Black Lives (not be confused with Black Lives Matter) is the current organization calling cracking down on big banks. They share some ideological positions with the Green Party.
The problem with student loans, is that there are no hard assets to seize if the owner goes bankrupt. With car loans, you can seize, and sell the used car. With a house loan, you can kick out the owner, and sell the used house.
pfft, you only need ~1/3 of the populace to be highly formally educated. If there is a lot of money in knowing a particular area of expertise, people will learn it. A populace does not need a bunch of degrees in women's studies. There are all sorts of universities with lower in state tuition, and community colleges.
Also, the United States has many dull, boring cities with low rent.
I disagree: The businesses are engaging only in the illegal activity the government allows: Onerous contracts with youngsters guaranteeing free money from the US government. If the government really cared, they would send each student a 'Know your rights' brochure listing the departments describing scams the student must be wary of, plus the departments charged with preventing such abuses.
The way to fix this is rather easy to find: The single-buyer system. That is, the government sets a price per subject (tiered by school, thus medical subjects earn more than IT subjects), plus a maximum of, say, 40 subjects subsidized per student. That leaves the universities free to charge more and the banks free to loan more; it just won't be subsidized by the government. Once again, much of the world already uses the single-buyer system for tertiary education.
http://positivemoney.org/
Without this information - that 97% of money is created - out of thin air - by banks, you cannot understand what's really going on in the world.
When I took out my student loans, I believed (even at that time) that my nonprofit but expensive four-year college explained things to me very well. I understood what I was doing before I signed even one loan document. My impression is that kids today are not being told the truth about these student loans. Nobody's pointing out to them that this debt is something even death can't automatically discharge.
There are grandparents of dead students who cosigned on their grandchildren's student loans. The kids off themselves for variety of reasons and guess what? A portion of Grandma's Social Security retirement check is being garnished every month for the rest of her life to pay back that student loan. None of the standard laws that apply to debt collectors are true with student loans.
There is no statute of limitations, you cannot discharge the debt in bankruptcy, and income that would normally be exempt from debt collection garnishment, such as disability or retirement checks, is not protected income under the law. At the very least, the government can legally garnish every single tax return refund every year for the rest of your life, until that debt is paid in full. And that final debt you owe could be hundreds of thousands of dollars more than you actually borrowed to attend college. The debt collector gets to add on late fees, delinquency fees, court fees and all other kinds of bogus charges. The college I attended made all of this very clear to me before I signed even one student loan document, but later on in my life, when I went back to school and attended a community college for a refresher courses in my major, you would have thought that money was free, based on the way the school presented the deal to me.
Have given the banks EVERYTHING they want.
The whole lot deserves to die in a fire.