A shady, shuttered tech bootcamp may be sneaking back online

A year and a half ago, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) worked with state attorneys general to shut down Prehired, a shady tech sales bootcamp program that a court said deceptively saddled students with millions of dollars in loans. Now, as the federal watchdog is being dismantled by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a consumer advocacy group says the company is relaunching its old pitch under a new name: FastTrack. Prehired was an online program that offered training for entry-level software sales roles, promising that students would only have to pay the course’s cost once they landed a job that paid more than $60,000 within 12 months of finishing. In a 2023 complaint, the CFPB and 11 states claimed that these were deceptively marketed loans with buried terms that left students on the hook even if they didn’t get a job. After students had signed up, Prehired allegedly claimed they’d benefit from converting these loans into settlement agreements wi ... Read full article.