FACTS Management Company

May be a repeat as last entry was abruptly discontinued.

The FACTS "agreement" that I was forced to sign by my institution did NOT give me a choice of whether to accept or NOT to accept the terms of the agreement. Never mind the $[redacted] enrollment fee that was charged to over 400 families .

The first part of the "agreement" that is contrary to good consumer protection is the release of personal financial information to yet another 3rd party vendor, whose security practices are NOT transparent to the consumer. The reason we put our money in banks is because they are professionals at protecting our assets. However, bank account and routing numbers to a 3rd party vendor is of dubious use when its simply a convenience for a school.

#2. a 60 day grace period for challenging charges by FACTS is not long enough. For anyone who has a business or has 100's of charges per month, it is difficult to pick up unwarranted charge. It should be at least a semester long period. If this was a parent/consumer friendly "agreement" it would be so.

#3: The mandatory use of Arbitration thought the [redacted] is definitely NOT consumer friendly. Look at the fine print folks. It will binding. You will NOT be allowed to join a class action suit. Even when the agreement is up (no sunset clause); AND it will be administered in Lincoln Nebraska. While disputes less than 5-10 k have small filing fees, you are Not in the driver seat on this one. I'm not sure your even in the passenger compartment.

PARENTS- You need to carefully read the find print. Think of how this agreement is good for you versus good for your school and the FACTS corporation. I think the answer is fairly obvious. I specifically asked my institution for me to opt out of the arbitration clause (this IS legal in many states) and was told 'NO". Consumer protection agency opinion is pending.