TurboDocs Review

TurboDocs is an online service that promises to help you manage your student loan debt and seek forgiveness on student loans. Here’s our TurboDocs review.

What Is TurboDocs?

TurboDocs is an online service found online at TurboDocsPro.com as well as TurboDocs.net. The service lets you create an account, link your FSA account, and then check if you’re eligible for discounts or lowered payments.

Using TurboDocs, students and graduates like you can lower your monthly payments, take advantage of government payments, and ultimately pay less on your student loan.

All you need to do to get started is enter your information into the TurboDocs online form. After pressing “Submit”, your information is then sold to debt consolidation agencies who will call, text, and email you with debt consolidation offers.

How Does TurboDocs Work?

TurboDocs works in a three step process:

Step 1) Tell TurboDocs about your loans. You can do this by speaking with a TurboDocs advisor or by entering your loan information online. This allows you to check which Department of Education program(s) you may qualify for.

Step 2) Review your options. Your TurboDocs advisor will check your income and family size to determine the program that best suits your needs.

Step 3) Enjoy new payments. After you’ve chosen a TurboDocs program, the advisor will walk you through the agreement to begin preparing documents.

That’s it! The goal of TurboDocs is to help students take advantage of new government programs.

As you may have guessed, TurboDocs is a little too good to be true. First, the program is not affiliated with the US government in any way, shape, or form. It’s a private company that wants to make money off your student loans.

The thing about these government programs is that you don’t need a service like TurboDocs to apply for them. In fact, TurboDocs is legally required to tell you the following (it’s in fine print at the bottom of the TurboDocs sales page):

“You can apply for loan consolidation, without paid assistance through the Department of Education (DOE) at StudentLoans.gov. Turbo Docs Pro assists you to prepare and process the application for student loan consolidation and repayment programs offered by the DOE.”

It's important to recognize that TurboDocs is not a loan servicer and does not relieve your debt, renegotiate your debt, settle your debt, or “in any way alter the terms of payment or debt.” It’s just a service that helps you take advantage of government programs for student loan relief.

So what exactly are those programs for student loan relief? Let’s take a closer look.

Government Programs for Student Loan Relief

The goal of TurboDocs is to connect you with government programs that ultimately save you money. Those programs include all of the following:

-Student Loan Forgiveness: If you have federal student loans, then you may qualify for student loan forgiveness programs available to borrowers. You may be eligible for things like principal reduction, loan forgiveness, or a complete loan discharge – depending on your individual circumstances (like income, family income, number of dependents, etc.)

-Loan Consolidation: Loan consolidation takes all of your federal student loans and combines them into one new loan. In this situation, you get a lower rate through one single lender with just one monthly payment.

-Income-based Payments: Income-based repayment programs calculate your student loan payments based on your current income. TurboDocs claims you can even avoid paying student loans entirely by taking advantage of this system: “The payment could be as low as $0.00 per month, with forgiveness at the end of 20-25 years.”

What Do You Agree To When Signing Up for TurboDocs?

The main TurboDocs website forces you to agree to some scary things when you first sign up. In the fine print underneath the main entry form, you’ll read the following:

“[I agree] to share your information with TurboDocs and/or our partners. You authorize us to contact you (including through automated means, such as by autodialing, text or pre-recorded messaging) via telephone, cellphone, mobile device (including SMS and MMS) and/or email, even if your telephone number is currently listed on any state, federal or corporate Do Not Call list. You also acknowledge and consent to the recording and monitoring of all calls to and from TurboDocs and/or our partners. Your consent to the above is not required as a condition of purchasing or receiving our services.”

Those are the conditions you have to accept before you even start working with TurboDocs. Those are the conditions at the bottom of the form that simply asks for your email address, name, phone number, and total loan balance.

After you’ve entered that information and agreed to the above restrictions, you’re giving TurboDocs immediate ability to share your information with “partners” (whoever they are) and contact you via any means necessary – even if you’re on Do Not Call lists.

Making things worse is that after you enter your name into that form, nothing happens: you just get a message saying “Your message was sent successfully. Thanks.” There’s no follow-up page. At this point, your data is likely being shared with advertisers and sold to debt consolidation agencies, who then look at your information and decide whether or not they can make any money off of you.

Should You Use TurboDocs to Get a Free Student Loan?

TurboDocs makes bold promises about its ability to give you a deal on your student loan. The company claims you can lower your payments to as little as $0.00 per month and get forgiveness for your loan within 20 to 25 years.

In reality, TurboDocs appears to just take your information and then sell it to loan consolidation agencies. These loan consolidation agencies will then bombard you with emails, text messages, voicemails, and all other types of advertisements trying to get your business.

There are plenty of real, non-scammy resources you can use to seek student loan forgiveness. You should start with official government websites, including this one: Student Loan Forgiveness through the US Department of Education. You should also visit StudentLoans.gov, which offers similar services to TurboDocs but free of charge.

TurboDocs doesn’t have enough transparency to make them a recommended organization. However, the transparency we do see tells us that this is basically a lead capture system for debt consolidation companies. You’re better off working with legitimate government resources like StudentLoans.gov.