I came home from an out-of-town trip today to find a message on my machine from 800-852-1181 (which is a toll-free version of the same line at 717-720-1580). The caller mentioned that a person applying for a loan had given my wife as a reference. I don't recognize the name of the borrower, but I haven't yet asked my wife if she knows who it is.
The strange part of all of this is that the reason I was out of town was because I happened to be visiting a client of mine who uses my company's products and services: PHEAA. PHEAA (The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency) serves Pennsylvania students, but they also have two other subsidiaries that service loans around the country: AES and FedLoan. They are all the same corporate enitity (it has about 11,000 employees) and they are an absolutley legitimate business, and an agency of the Pennsylvania state government.
The FedLoan division services some direct loans, but they also service loans on behalf of many lenders, including most of the large national banking institutions, other state and federal loan agencies and other lenders. You might take out a student loan with Bank of America, for example, who has in turn contracted FedLoan to service it.
The bottom line is this: While the advice above about being circumspect with the information you share over the phone is very sound, in this particular case I know with confidence that FedLoan is a real company, and it is resonable to assume that they are gathering information for legitimate purposes.
I think there is an employee at that agency trying to commit fraud. And I also think that the PHEAA should be by now requesting an investigation of that phone number clearing their name while helping a lot of people avoid be scammed
I keep getting phone calls from this number as well, however I know PHEAA is a valid student loan service as both my husband & I have student loans through them. My problem is this...I'm still in school so I have no idea why they'd be calling me on my private phone. They never leave messages & I swear they hire people you came understand & it must be a requirement for them to be rude with no compassion.