Education Department will use ‘secret shoppers’ to detect student loan servicer errors

The Department of Education announced it will use “secret shoppers” to help monitor the student loan repayment process, as payments for millions of borrowers restarted last month following a pause during the Covid-19 pandemic that lasted more than three years.

The department outlined framework Thursday for a student loan oversight program to increase student loan servicer accountability and make sure borrowers are not harmed by servicer errors. Servicers are companies the Education Department contracts with to handle billing and other services on federal student loans.