BCO Consulting Services Inc. and SLA Consulting Services Inc. told student loan borrowers they were enrolled in a legitimate repayment program that would apply their monthly payments toward reducing their federal loan balance, with the promise that some or all of their debt would ultimately be forgiven. According to the Federal Trade Commission, none of that was true — the companies had no affiliation with the U.S. Department of Education, and the payments borrowers made went to the operation's owners rather than toward any actual student loan.DOCUMENTED
The FTC sued BCO Consulting Services, SLA Consulting Services, and their owners, Gianni Olilang, Brandon Clores, Kishan Bhakta, and Allan Radam, and the FTC has since sent refunds to student loan borrowers harmed by the operation.DOCUMENTED
- BCO Consulting Services Inc. and SLA Consulting Services Inc. are owned by Gianni Olilang, Brandon Clores, Kishan Bhakta, and Allan Radam.
- The complaint alleges the operators falsely claimed affiliation with the Department of Education and its loan servicers.
- Borrowers were charged illegal upfront fees ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars.
- The complaint alleges consumers were falsely told their payments would be applied toward their actual loan balance.
- The operation is alleged to have sent a substantial share of the funds it collected to a call center in Colombia.
- The FTC has sent refunds to borrowers harmed by the scheme following a settlement with the named defendants.
What the complaint alleges
According to the FTC, BCO Consulting Services and SLA Consulting Services lured student loan borrowers seeking to reduce their payments into an operation that falsely claimed affiliation with the Department of Education and its loan servicers, charging illegal upfront fees ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars per borrower.DOCUMENTED The complaint alleges borrowers were led to believe they were enrolled in a legitimate federal repayment program, that their loans would be forgiven in whole or in part, and that most or all of their monthly payments to the company would be applied directly to their loan balance — none of which, according to the FTC, was actually true.DOCUMENTED
Where the money actually went
Rather than being applied to borrowers' federal student loans, the FTC alleges the defendants pocketed the funds directly, with the complaint noting that a significant share of the money collected was sent to a call center the operation used in Colombia.DOCUMENTED Operating a portion of the underlying business overseas, while marketing directly to U.S. borrowers under a domestic-sounding company name, added a layer of geographic distance between the funds collected and the eventual destination — a structural feature that can complicate both consumer suspicion and, in some cases, regulatory tracing of exactly how collected fees were ultimately distributed.REVIEWED
Why federal student loan relief scams remain a persistent pattern
Federal student loan borrowers have been a recurring target for debt-relief impersonation schemes for years, in part because the Department of Education and its loan servicers do communicate directly with borrowers about repayment plans, forbearance, and forgiveness programs — giving a scheme claiming that same affiliation a baseline plausibility that a company impersonating a less familiar entity would lack.REVIEWED That plausibility, combined with genuine and often confusing federal loan servicing transfers and program changes in recent years, has created persistent conditions for schemes like this one to convince borrowers a third-party company's involvement in their loan is normal and expected.
Terms of the settlement
The settlement resolving the FTC's complaint against BCO Consulting Services, SLA Consulting Services, and the four named owners requires the defendants to cease the deceptive practices described in the complaint and directs recovered funds toward consumer redress.DOCUMENTED The FTC has since distributed refunds to affected borrowers as part of that redress process, part of the agency's broader, sustained enforcement focus on student loan debt relief impersonation schemes targeting federal borrowers.DOCUMENTED
A significant share of the fees borrowers paid, believing the money was going toward their federal student loan balance, was instead sent to a call center in Colombia, according to the complaint.
Why the case matters
For federal student loan borrowers considering a third-party debt relief service, the BCO Consulting Services case is a reminder that federal loan forgiveness, income-driven repayment, and forbearance programs are available directly and free of charge through the Department of Education and a borrower's actual loan servicer — any company charging an upfront fee and claiming Department of Education affiliation to enroll a borrower in a program is a structure the FTC has repeatedly found associated with exactly this kind of scheme.
Why overseas call centers complicate consumer recourse
Operating a portion of a scheme's customer-facing operations from overseas, as the complaint alleges occurred here, can slow a borrower's path to recognizing something is wrong, since call center representatives working from a script may sound identical to a domestic operation regardless of where the underlying calls actually originate. That geographic distance can also complicate asset recovery efforts once a case is filed, since some portion of collected fees may have already moved beyond straightforward domestic seizure by the time regulators intervene.
What legitimate federal loan servicing actually looks like
Borrowers' actual loan servicers are identifiable directly through the Department of Education's own studentaid.gov website, which lists the specific servicer assigned to a borrower's federal loans and provides free, direct enrollment in any income-driven repayment or forgiveness program a borrower may qualify for. Comparing a company's claims against that official government resource, before paying any fee, remains the most reliable way to confirm whether a debt relief offer is legitimate. That comparison takes only a few minutes on an official government site and can prevent exactly the kind of fee-based deception this case describes. No legitimate loan servicer will discourage a borrower from making that same comparison directly.
Why naming individual owners mattered in this case
Naming Olilang, Clores, Bhakta, and Radam individually, rather than resolving the matter against the corporate entities alone, ensures that any future attempt by these four individuals to restart a similar operation under a new company name would still be bound by the terms of this settlement, since the restrictions attach to the people rather than only the corporate shells they used to operate the scheme.
Sources behind this report
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