On December 16, two former students filed lawsuits against Top Applicant (also known as “Elevate”), a predatory online bootcamp, and Leif, a nationwide provider of a risky kind of private student loan known as an Income Share Agreement (ISA). The borrowers allege that the companies engaged in a scheme to peddle expensive financing that students could use to pay for sham training—leaving those students stuck with false promises and piles of debt. The students are demanding these illicit debts be wiped out and that the school stop illegal operations.
Accompanying these lawsuits, the Student Borrower Protection Center filed a formal referral to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau requesting that the agency investigate Leif for its facilitation of Top Applicant’s fraud and for broader harms that the company may already be upholding at other, comparable fraudulent institutions.
Read the press release: Income Share Agreement Company and For-Profit School Sued for Deceptive Practices and Illegal Lending
A copy of the lawsuit filed against Elevate/Top Applicant and Leif in California is available here.
A copy of the lawsuit filed against Elevate/Top Applicant and Leif in Washington is available here.
A copy of the referral of Leif to the CFPB is available here.
Read more of the SBPC’s work related to income share agreements here.