With the CFPB Shuttered, Advocates Call on State Regulators and Attorneys General to Protect Students and Borrowers from the Repeat Offender
By Ella Azoulay | April 1, 2025
Prehired was an online tech sales bootcamp that was forced to shut down after luring students into scam “training” programs and saddling them with predatory shadow student debt. Now, Prehired’s CEO and founder Joshua Jordan has relaunched his company, just under a new name—FastTrack.
An investigation by the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) has uncovered potential violations of a settlement agreement that 11 states and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) secured against Prehired back in 2023. Under the terms of the settlement order, Prehired was required to cease all operations, pay $4.2 million in redress to consumers who were affected by its illegal practices, and void all of its outstanding income share loans, valued at nearly $27 million.
Given that the CFPB has been entirely shuttered for nearly two months, students and families have been left without a federal watchdog to protect them in a financial marketplace that is rigged against them. When President Trump and Acting CFPB Director Vought forced all work at the consumer watchdog agency to come to a halt, they opened the door for predatory actors and fraudsters to take this as an opportunity to prey on students and families. Joshua Jordan’s attempted end-run around the Prehired settlement is evidence of the risks consumers now face as a result of the abdication by the current political leadership of the CFPB.
In an urgent letter to the state attorneys general and state regulators that took action against Prehired, SBPC calls on these offices to protect students across the nation, including those now at risk due to FastTrack. These law enforcement agencies’ immediate action is critical, especially without a functioning CFPB.
Jordan’s sham bootcamp company “Prehired” was shut down for ripping off students.
Prehired was a Delaware-based company that operated a 12-week online bootcamp program claiming to prepare students for entry-level positions as software sales development representatives with “six-figure salaries” and a “job guarantee.” To pay for the bootcamp, Prehired offered students an “income-share agreement” (ISA). ISAs are a uniquely risky form of student debt, but Prehired deceptively told students their ISAs were “not a loan.”
In February 2022, SBPC first sounded the alarm about Prehired’s abusive loan practices after being contacted by former Prehired students. SBPC’s investigation revealed evidence of a wide range of illegal practices that were relevant to the work of federal and state consumer protection officials. In July 2023, the CFPB and 11 states sued Prehired over deceptive lending and debt collection practices, ultimately resulting in Prehired ceasing operations.
FastTrack is a copy and paste of Prehired… literally.
FastTrack describes itself as a “fast mentorship” program, and it echoes the language from the original Prehired website to describe its offerings, saying “After 12 weeks, FastTrack members average $70,000 in their first year with a 6-figure potential after that. Start with zero upfront cost. Pay after you land a role. No catch.”
The similarities between Prehired and FastTrack do not end with the concept and description. In fact, it appears that FastTrack’s structure, promises, and the vast majority of the content on FastTrack’s website are copied and pasted verbatim from its previous iteration as Prehired.
Figure 1. FastTrack has the exact same “Member Success Guarantee” from when it was Prehired.
Figure 2. FastTrack’s trademark-registered “Science-Based Sales” method appears to be the same as when it was Prehired’s.
Figure 3. The details of Prehired’s ISA appear similar to FastTrack’s “Membership Dues.”
Figure 4. On FastTrack’s “Member Reviews Page,” the 700+ reviews of FastTrack are all reviews of when it operated under the name Prehired.
Figure 5. FastTrack’s page that compares it to “everyone else” even included its prior name, Prehired, in the URL, and was copied verbatim from the Prehired website.
Figure 6. Other than the company name, FastTrack’s member code of conduct is identical to the Prehired version.
There are countless other troubling similarities between the FastTrack and Prehired versions of Jordan’s websites. For example, FastTrack’s “Day in the Life” page houses videos from Prehired’s Youtube channel. The channel recently had its name and logo changed to FastTrack’s, but the channel itself, the subscribers, and all of the uploaded videos were from the Prehired era. Additionally, FastTrack claims its “training is award-winning” and depicts badges for Career Karma’s “Best Tech Sales Bootcamp” and Course Report’s “Best Tech Sales Bootcamp” but “FastTrack” was never given those awards—they went to the company when it was named Prehired. Finally, FastTrack’s blogs, authored by Joshua Jordan, predate “FastTrack” and seem to have been originally written for and about “Prehired.”
Alarmingly, FastTrack has allegedly already “helped hundreds” of students. If FastTrack is, as it appears to be, Prehired relaunched under a new name, then it is likely that Jordan has flagrantly violated the terms of the Prehired settlement. With the CFPB sidelined under new political leadership, it is critical that state attorneys general and regulators act immediately to protect consumers. In particular, these agencies need to immediately investigate whether Prehired and FastTrack CEO Joshua Jordan is continuing to violate state consumer protection laws, consider taking further actions to close FastTrack, provide financial recourse to students who have fallen victim to this version of his scheme, and ban Joshua Jordan from consumer and student lending activities for good. Fortunately, state regulators are empowered to enforce the very same federal prohibition on unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts and practices that the CFPB is charged with (but currently appears intent on not) enforcing.
Without a functioning CFPB, students and families are relying on state entities to ensure that they are not forced to pay the price as they fall victim to predatory companies seeking to profiteer at their expense. Students must be protected from scams like Prehired/FastTrack.
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Ella Azoulay is the Research & Policy Analyst at the Student Borrower Protection Center. She joined SBPC from the Center for American Progress where they worked on higher education policy and advocacy.