Full link to consumer financial protection board announcement: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-takes...
CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred
81–90 of 384 posts
Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Not just pg, also the stripe founders have been fawning over Austen. They all knew it was a predatory “school” but backed it anyway.
Tommy Collison, their youngest brother, worked there as Head of Communications Strategy and Business Development.
Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Not just pg, also the stripe founders have been fawning over Austen. They all knew it was a predatory “school” but backed it anyway.
While I don’t think Lambda School is good, did they actually ever collect on any students who didn’t get jobs?
It seems kind of important to the premise. These things may have been loans and had a finance charge or whatever. But if you can “default” and nothing happens… what are they really?
Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred
#84I attended Lambda when it was first starting out. I think I was in the third or fourth cohort. At the time, the sell was that you didn't have to pay anything unless you got a job using the skills you learned from them. I was pretty naïve, I guess. Things seemed fine in the beginning. The instructors were good, and I liked that there were actual live classes. Things degraded very quickly. They kept changing the format…
Did you pay? Did they sue?
I paid
Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just pg, also the stripe founders have been fawning over Austen. They all knew it was a predatory “school” but backed it anyway.
While I don’t think Lambda School is good, did they actually ever collect on any students who didn’t get jobs? It seems kind of important to the premise. These things may have been loans and had a finance charge or whatever. But if you can “default” and nothing happens… what are they really?
The contracts in the early days lasted up to five years, so people who went on to further training (e.g. associates degree at a community college) still owed money even though Lambda School had zero role.
Later, they extended it to eight years and removed the “tech job” stipulation. I read one account a guy owing money who worked as a mailman.
Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred
#86I attended Lambda when it was first starting out. I think I was in the third or fourth cohort. At the time, the sell was that you didn't have to pay anything unless you got a job using the skills you learned from them. I was pretty naïve, I guess. Things seemed fine in the beginning. The instructors were good, and I liked that there were actual live classes. Things degraded very quickly. They kept changing the format…
Have you contacted the CFPB, to see whether they can help now (in light of this press release)?
I'll have to look into it more now. I had contacted a non-profit that represents defrauded students, but they had stopped pursuing it after a judge threw out their case.
Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred
#87It was almost an open scam, how are they fined 200gs, they made like 100 mill
Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just pg, also the stripe founders have been fawning over Austen. They all knew it was a predatory “school” but backed it anyway.
While I don’t think Lambda School is good, did they actually ever collect on any students who didn’t get jobs? It seems kind of important to the premise. These things may have been loans and had a finance charge or whatever. But if you can “default” and nothing happens… what are they really?
Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred
#89It's disappointing that California's Bureau for Private and Post-Secondary Education (BPPE) continued to approve this boot camp. I thought the rationale for creating the bureau was to discourage scams in job training.
Reminder: California passed a minimum wage law for fast food workers that exempts places that make their own bread (ahem, totally unrelated coincidence: Panera which bakes their own bread is a big donor to CA's governor).
https://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-c...
Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I don’t think Lambda School is good, did they actually ever collect on any students who didn’t get jobs? It seems kind of important to the premise. These things may have been loans and had a finance charge or whatever. But if you can “default” and nothing happens… what are they really?
The contracts in the early days lasted up to five years, so people who went on to further training (e.g. associates degree at a community college) still owed money even though Lambda School had zero role. Later, they extended it to eight years and removed the “tech job” stipulation. I read one account a guy owing money who worked as a mailman.
That’s scummy but it sounds like they could have achieved the arrangement “pay a share of your income wherever it comes from” without a loan.
The important part of this is a loan gives you rights as a creditor that an ordinary Accounts Payable does not. Did Lambda School’s creditors ever exercise those rights? If not, how important is the existence of a finance charge or APR or whatever? I mean, if it is only a loan for the purpose of being a product for banks, but functionally is just a, whatever, a payment plan: man, the CFPB is basically complaining about annual billing versus monthly billing discounts, bundling, and any number of psychological tricks. Scummy yes, but dramatic? No.