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Is it just me, but doesn't it seem like the concept of Frank as a business just sounds like it wouldn't have lived that long and that it might even be predatory
by layman51 1y ago
Is it just me, but doesn't it seem like the concept of Frank as a business just sounds like it wouldn't have lived that long and that it might even be predatory? Frank got in trouble with the Department of Education because they used the term "FAFSA" in their domain name. I was lucky enough to have mentors in my life who warned me away from clicking on sponsored links to paid preparers if I ever decided to Google search "FAFSA". So it makes me suspect like part of their business strategy was to convince low-income students who have great difficulty submitting the FAFSA to pay them to submit it for them. I don't recall what the environment was like years ago, but there had always been a desire on the part of ED to make the FAFSA easier to fill out, and this would have totally eroded the value of Frank even if it was a legitimate business. What's also confusing is that at some point they apparently had a `.org` domain, so maybe they were also a non-profit?
Apparently they also had some kind of service to submit an aid appeal letter to the student's financial aid office. This is also a ridiculous service for low-income students to pay for because I can almost guarantee that Frank wouldn't have the context necessary to actually convince a college's financial aid administrators to give more money to one of their users.
It's almost as if the people considering the deal might have been focusing more on the financial education aspects of Frank instead of how they actually would interface with the FAFSA.
- brandall10 1y agoAs I mentioned a bit further down, the blind spot here is they really only cared about the user list. The product itself was immaterial, so they might have overlooked or simply not cared about some of the shadier tactics to acquire it.
- SoftTalker 1y agoAgreed. FAFSA is a bit tedious to fill out but it’s not difficult. No need to pay someone to do it. They’re just going to have to ask you for all the same information anyway.