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Businesses Education

Amazon Wants To Sell You Everything, Including Student Loans (qz.com) 49

Posted by msmash from the one-stop-shop dept.
Amazon sells all kinds of stuff -- some legit, some not as much. So it didn't really come as a big surprise when the company announced that it will now be selling student loans too. Quartz has more details: The e-commerce giant inked a deal with Wells Fargo to offer interest rate discounts on loans to students who are Amazon Prime members. The bank, which is the second largest student lender in the US, will shave off half a percentage point for Amazon "Prime Student" customers who take out student loans to attend college or are looking to refinance their existing student loans.
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Amazon Wants To Sell You Everything, Including Student Loans More

Amazon Wants To Sell You Everything, Including Student Loans

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  • Late payment penalties (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @05:59PM (#52557605)

    If you fall behind on your loan re-payments, you still get Free Shipping, but must use the "No Rush Shipping" option and forgo the promotional credit.

  • On the plus side... (Score:3)

    by by (1706743) ( 1706744 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @06:01PM (#52557611)
    Amazon even has this for free! [amazon.com]

  • Student loans are a government subsidized scam (Score:4, Informative)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @06:04PM (#52557625)

    Not surprising to see Amazon to look for this easy money. Banks have been ripping off students and the government for years with this scam.
    Interest rates are high... much higher than most loans.
    Loans are guaranteed by the government so no risk to the lender.
    Students can't declare bankruptcy and discharge the loans so they are on the hook for life.
    Side note: when my daughters started college a few years ago, I was deluged with calls from student loan salespeople. Reminded me of home refinance deluge just before the crash. Fortunately, I had saved enough for their education so I was able to tell them to get lost.

    • banks / schools need to take risk for Students loans and not the unlimited anyone with anyone with a pulse can get system we have now.

      medieval studies degree for 80K sing right hear. We don't care that you have no hope of a job to pay that back we don't care you can't use chapter 11 or 7 to get out of it.

      • Sounds like a great degree for a person who wants to write history books. Give them a couple decades to start being realistic about what they can actually use it for, if they never manage to develop any other skills.

        If the student wants job training, they should be at a technical school; and deciding that is the student's part, not the school's.

    • Perhaps that's why they all called you. They saw you had a great credit rating. I'd take it as a compliment. :)

  • Not *really* selling student loans (Score:4, Insightful)

    by C3ntaur ( 642283 ) <panystrom@gmai l . c om> on Thursday July 21, 2016 @06:07PM (#52557643) Journal
    Sounds to me like they want to *write* student loans. Which is quite different from selling them. I would be interested in buying the notes, if that's what they were selling. Usurious interest rates, no chance of discharge in bankruptcy, no expiration. This is the kind of investment vehicle I would want to own.

    • and then in 2017 trump or Hillary changes the rules and you take a beating.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Ha, yeah right - that would imply either care about anyone but themselves.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      I figure there has to be some risk with even the apparent advantages.

      For one, you still have to collect on deadbeats. That's not easy.

      There could be some kind of shift in the so-called gig economy where like minded student loan evaders eke out some kind of cash-only existence, making them even harder to trace and collect on.

      Then there's potential for political action. It's not hard to imagine some kind of "student loan debt relief" where Congress basically forces the holders of these loans to take a hairc

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mspohr ( 589790 )

        No risk to the lender. The government covers losses.
        They hire sleazy debt collectors to harass students who can't pay.
        The only kind of debt relief that might happen is for the taxpayer to bail out the banks. That's the way our bank owned government works. Heads they win, tails we lose.

  • I get that you need ads to pay the bills, but to go to the main page and see one of Outbrain's evil sub-sites with that tiresome "Melissa McCarthy's Gone" advertisement? What the fuck makes you think that anyone here gives a flying fuck about celebrities, or that such an obviously non-topical ad on the main page wouldn't be fucking annoying?

  • Anyone else starting to think that soon Amazon will turn into the distopian Wall-E mega-store? Bezos already has his space hobby going as a side gig.

    • I thought that happened 10+ years ago, where were you?

      I still shop at the local independent bookstore...

  • and Fuck Student loans. College shot up in price because we cut all the federal funding we used to give public Universities. That wasn't by accident. It was lobbied for by banks. It's a win-win. They can pocket the money once as tax cuts and again on massive interest from the loans. What I haven't figured out is how they convinced so many otherwise very intelligent people that a small uptick in Administrative costs is to blame vs the billions in Federal funding & grants that went missing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mspohr ( 589790 )

      They only needed to convince a few people in government to overlook the scam. In most countries this is called bribery. In the US, it's called campaign donations.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      tuition is what the market will bear.. federal guaranteed loans = higher prices..

  • "How to succeed in business when your customers aren't making a living wage"
    .

  • Cheap Chinese knockoffs? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @08:30PM (#52558255)

    Are these going to be counterfeit too?

  • An average $1000-2000 over 10 years, the origination, application and prepayment fees alone are double that.

  • I was rather hoping I could buy a block of those student loans gone to collection for mere cents on the c-notes.
    Specifically one with anything from my family.
    Then I could 'forgive' all of it, including those of my family, ask for donations from the forgiven and anyone else afterwards, and if there's enough, do it for another block. (There's a reason why some from my family may be in there, we're too damn poor to pay it, much less play Santa Clause without resources.)
    Rinse, Repeat, Rack up Karma. :)

    Maybe it'

  • I'd like to buy the ability to watch a video on youtube without being forced to listen to their "it's your friend's birthday blah blah blah blah" ad.

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