Private student loan lenders engaged in dishonest practices by misleading college financial aid advisers and students about the actual terms of private student loans. They promoted these loans as comparable to federal student loans but they have very limited deferment and forbearance terms; they are not subject to any consolidation and they have exceedingly high interest rates. They also provided unrealistic repayment terms using figures that severely underestimated the actual repayment amounts. As a consequence, students obtaining graduate degrees or who are unemployed, are forced to make payments they can't afford or suffer destruction of their credit and daily harassment from service providers because there are NO options available in either case.



