Students from all over New Jersey obtain their state student loans through the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, or HESAA. In 2016, it came to light that this agency was bribing students with flash drives to review the loan company on Google. This is not the first time that HESAA has been in trouble recently, as they are also being investigated for using “aggressive tactics” when collecting loan payments from families of students that have unfortunately passed away before they could repay their student loans.

The agency claims that it was not encouraging students to give necessarily good reviews, they just wanted reviews of any sort and had used the flash drive as an incentive to get customers to leave reviews. This incentive was only offered to students who had received Tuition Aid Grants, which is a financial aid program specifically for students from low-income families. Google does not allow companies to pay people to post reviews about their businesses, as fake reviews may make a company look much better than it truly is.

HESAA is also the company that administers NJ Class loans. There was recently an investigation regarding how strict HESAA is about the repayment of student loans. If you have questions regarding NJ Class loans, contact our firm today.

If you are in need of experienced legal counsel for matters of personal injury, medical malpractice, medical device injuries, unsafe drug injuries, consumer protection, bankruptcy, SSD, or criminal law in New Jersey, please contact Tomes Law Firm, PC and we will be happy to assist you.