A shady, shuttered tech bootcamp may be sneaking back online

A twelvemonth and a fractional ago, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) worked with authorities attorneys wide to unopen down Prehired, a shady tech income bootcamp programme that a tribunal said deceptively saddled students with millions of dollars successful loans. Now, arsenic the national watchdog is being dismantled by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a user advocacy radical says the institution is relaunching its aged transportation nether a caller name: FastTrack.

Prehired was an online programme that offered grooming for entry-level bundle income roles, promising that students would lone person to wage the course’s outgo erstwhile they landed a occupation that paid much than $60,000 wrong 12 months of finishing. In a 2023 complaint, the CFPB and 11 states claimed that these were deceptively marketed loans with buried presumption that near students connected the hook adjacent if they didn’t get a job. After students had signed up, Prehired allegedly claimed they’d payment from converting these loans into colony agreements with the company, which really made it harder for them to combat indebtedness collectors.

In November 2023, a tribunal approved an bid shutting down Prehired and permanently banning it from offering akin loans successful the future. The institution had already filed for bankruptcy. Prehired was ordered to refund $4.2 cardinal paid by pupil borrowers connected the income stock agreements, and void $27 cardinal worthy of outstanding loans.

Prehired, however, has allegedly done small to grant those terms. Last year, erstwhile Prehired students came crossed a caller institution called FastTrack, which looked suspiciously similar. It offered the aforesaid “member occurrence guarantee” of landing a occupation with a wage of astatine slightest $60,000 wrong 12 months of completing the program, featured the aforesaid images connected its website, and adjacent displayed reviews that appeared to person really been reviews of Prehired. It besides featured a page of blogs authored by Joshua Jordan — the sanction of the enforcement who antecedently ran Prehired (the writer of those blogs has since been swapped out).

In December 2024, the erstwhile Prehired students flagged the caller FastTrack programme to the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC), the nonprofit radical that originally blew the whistle connected Prehired. “We did a side-by-side examination of what we had saved arsenic records of his aged scheme, and determination it was verbatim, conscionable staring close astatine america — the nonstop aforesaid income pitch,” says Mike Pierce, SBPC’s enforcement director.

FastTrack is offering interest-free financing for $30,000 successful deferred “dues,” alternatively than an income stock agreement, but Pierce says the warrant offered is fundamentally the aforesaid arsenic Prehired’s. “We knew that was a prevarication astatine Prehired due to the fact that yet helium drove a clump of students who didn’t get jobs into tribunal and past into indebtedness collection,” helium says. “I would presume that that’s a prevarication present too, due to the fact that it doesn’t look similar immoderate different portion of the woody is immoderate different.”

If FastTrack — which Pierce says seemingly launched soon aft the archetypal consent bid — is simply a renamed Prehire, “it is apt that Jordan has flagrantly violated the presumption of the Prehired settlement,” SBPC probe and argumentation expert Ella Azoulay says successful a blog post. In letters sent connected Monday to authorities AGs, SBPC claimed that Jordan appears to astatine slightest beryllium violating the “clear intent” of the Prehired settlement, and FastTrack is “at the precise slightest engaged successful the aforesaid unlawful behaviour that resulted successful the colony agreement.”

FastTrack, which claims it has helped “hundreds” of members, could enactment a full caller harvest of students astatine hazard of wasted clip and fiscal damage. Prehired utilized tactics that “we had ne'er seen a fraudster bash before,” Pierce says. That included a “mass filing of indebtedness postulation actions against erstwhile students” to get them to wage their income stock agreements, and aboriginal propulsion them into arbitration.

One erstwhile Prehired attendee is Chris Belcher, a erstwhile Marine who signed up for the people successful 2019 to get into tech sales. Belcher soon joined the institution arsenic a commission-based contractor, selling the programme to the subject and to tech companies that mightiness beryllium funny successful hiring Prehired students. But helium says helium was incapable to enlistee caller businesses and near aft a fewer months. That’s erstwhile helium says Prehired “started harassing the crap retired of” him. Belcher says he’d gotten a occupation selling windows — the glass, not the bundle — yet Prehired was coming to cod connected the $15,000, seeming to instrumentality recognition for Belcher landing a relation successful an unrelated field. Belcher says helium held steadfast successful refusing to wage the fee.

Belcher says he’s not wholly amazed to spot Jordan’s sanction popular up again with a akin program, due to the fact that he’s travel to spot galore specified businesses arsenic suspect, though commonplace. “It conscionable doesn’t astonishment me, having learned astir the shadiness of this broadside of this business,” helium says. He present advises radical trying to get skills to spell into tech income not to instrumentality classes similar those Prehired offered if they outgo immoderate wealth to bash so.

Under mean circumstances, the CFPB would person already initiated a caller enactment against FastTrack and Jordan, says Pierce, who antecedently worked astatine the agency. But now, it’s been greatly weakened by President Donald Trump and DOGE. A backlog of cases built up nether Russell Vought, acting manager of the Office of Budget and Management, who ordered unit to halt moving connected February 10th — and a justice lone conscionable ruled past Friday that they could get backmost to work portion a broader lawsuit is pending. This injunction means the justice believes the workers’ national volition apt prevail successful claiming the Trump medication unlawfully dismantled the CFPB, but reaching that decision could instrumentality months — and if a Republican-led Congress formally shuts the bureau down, overmuch little tin beryllium done. 

“The CFPB is expected to beryllium monitoring these consent orders to marque definite that firm criminals travel the presumption of their deals here,” Pierce days. “Instead of doing their job, we person watched the Trump CFPB occurrence its enforcement attorneys, unopen down the agency, [and] instrumentality the sanction disconnected the building. So of course, that’s a elephantine ‘open for business’ motion for each two-bit fraudster successful America.” 

For now, arsenic a battered CFPB is getting backmost to business, the SBPC is turning to authorities AGs arsenic a “last enactment of defense,” Pierce says. But that doesn’t mean they’re a sustainable replacement for a national watchdog. “You can’t person the benignant of standard and resources successful a authorities AG’s bureau that you get successful Washington erstwhile you person a national regulator with thousands of employees whose lone occupation time successful and time retired is to ticker for fiscal fraud,” helium says. “This doesn’t mean that the authorities agencies weren’t doing their jobs. It means that CFPB has a ngo and the resources to bash its job, and erstwhile it doesn’t, radical get hurt.”