Consumer complaint received 2024-01-22
Product: Student loan — Federal student loan servicing
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer — Received bad information about your loan
Company: Summit Horizon Financial Services (NY)

On XX/XX/2021, I was targeted by a Summit Horizon agent and fraudulently induced into purchasing purported student loan debt relief services. Over the course of several phone conversations, Summit Horizon falsely represented that they could offer me loan consolidation and forgiveness. This sale of purported loan consolidation and forgiveness was plainly fraudulent, and the promise of loan forgiveness was a deliberate misrepresentation designed to deceive me into purchasing services. Since signing a contract with Summit Horizon, my student loans have not been forgiven. I now understand that my student loans can only be forgiven by the federal government and any forgiveness would require several preconditions that are completely out of the control of Summit Horizon.

Summit Horizon engaged in a variety of unlawful activities in an attempt to sell me worthless services. First, Summit Horizon violated the XXXX XXXX XXXX by charging me XXXX up-front payments, XXXX of {$4000.00} and another for {$1500.00} before the services sold had been completed. The XXXX forbids telemarketers from collecting payments of any kind before the services they are selling have been completed and provided to the buyer. Summit Horizon charged me {$4000.00} on XX/XX/2021, a day after I had first received an unsolicited phone call from Summit Horizon, along with another {$1500.00} on XX/XX/2021, weeks before any services promised were supposedly rendered to me. 


Secondly, the Summit Horizon agent who called me on the phone made numerous misrepresentations to me, including promising that by purchasing services, I would receive a lower interest rate on my loans and see the funds I paid to Summit Horizon applied to my student loan balance after a year. Summit Horizon never applied the funds I paid to my student loan balance. In fact, all Summit Horizon did for me was consolidate my Federal Direct loans, which was entirely unnecessary, and enroll me in the Revised Pay as You Earn ( XXXX ) plan, both of which are free government programs. Summit Horizon never disclosed to me that all of its services were available for free from the government.

To be abundantly clear, the Summit Horizon agent contacted me without my solicitation and convinced me to pay Summit Horizon {$4000.00} on the day of our first phone conversation before any contract for services supposedly rendered was signed. Weeks later, the same agent called me again with a better offer and convinced me to pay an additional {$1500.00} to Summit Horizon with the promise that I would receive my {$4000.00} back. In sum, I was convinced to pay Summit Horizon {$5500.00} over XXXX separate transactions for loan consolidation and forgiveness services. The services provided to me by Summit Horizon consisted entirely of applying to enroll me in an IDR planspecifically, XXXX. I am able to obtain this service free of charge at any time by logging on to the Department of Education website and filling out a five-page form, so the services that were sold to me at the outrageous price of {$1500.00} were completely, totally worthless, in addition to Summit Horizon taking {$4000.00} from me and not applying any of that money to my student loan balance. 

I have since been blocked by the company.