Huffington Post reports that the US Department of Education is terminating its relationships with five debt collection agencies which have been contracted to collect student loans. This action is in response to an inspector’s report that found fault with the agencies, specifically mentioning that some misrepresented the rights of the students, the collection fees, and the effect on the students’ credit reports.  The agencies in question are below.

Pioneer Credit Recovery
Coast Professional
Enterprise Recovery Systems
National Recoveries
West Asset Management.

Parenthetically, the article mentions that Pioneer Credit Recovery is a subsidiary Navient, the company formerly known as Sallie Mae.  (Sallie, that girl.)

The government will be winding down its accounts with these companies and will transfer them to other agencies. Apparently there are approximately 20 debt collection companies authorized to collect student loan accounts.  If you are a student loan debtor, I suggest that you not believe anything these companies tell you, and get independent verification of anything they say. In addition, get them to put everything in writing.  As a matter of fact, you should do this when dealing with ANY student loan collector.  Just because these five got caught, doesn’t mean they are the only ones doing nasty things to student loan debtors.