Nancy Plemons, a 71-year-old retired educator in Junction City, Ore., told NBC16 she was stunned to receive a letter from a university she did not recognize saying she owed nearly $5,000 in student loans. The loans were serviced by EdFinancial, and the school named in the correspondence was Strayer University, both of which did not respond to NBC16’s requests for comment, the station reported on Oct. 23, 2026.
What happened and how it affected her credit
Plemons said the fraudulent loans caused her credit score to fall by more than 100 points. She described months of stress while she tried to get the university and the loan servicer to acknowledge and correct the accounts. According to NBC16, Strayer University refused to disclose what classes Plemons was supposedly enrolled in even after the school verified her identity.
“I could not get anybody to listen to me. It was, ‘Send this documentation, send this documentation, send this documentation.’ So I did,” Nancy Plemons said to NBC16.
Plemons said Strayer only agreed to close the account after she told the school she had contacted the news media. She said EdFinancial still holds her responsible for the loans.
Official guidance and context
Lane Thompson, Oregon’s student loan ombudsman, told NBC16 that federal borrowers who are victims of identity fraud can apply for a fraud discharge. Thompson advised borrowers to use StudentAid.gov to find and submit the ID theft or fraud discharge application to their servicer.
“The first thing that they’re going to want to do is go onto the StudentAid.gov website. In this case, they would want to find the ID theft or fraud discharge application, complete that, and send it to their servicer,” Lane Thompson said.
The NBC16 story also cited the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report, which found that older Americans lost more than $48 million in a single year to identity theft — a figure the report said has been rising.
What this case means for borrowers
- Fraud on federal student loans can appear on a borrower’s credit report and significantly lower scores.
- The federal government provides a specific ID-theft/fraud discharge process for borrowers; the ombudsman recommended starting at StudentAid.gov.
- Victims may face long delays and documentation requests from schools and servicers before accounts are corrected, according to the retiree’s account to NBC16.
The NBC16 report documents one consumer’s experience with alleged student loan identity theft and highlights the practical hurdles borrowers can face when disputing fraudulent federal loan accounts.
