College Financial Advisors College Financial Advisors Failed Me Tomball Texas

College Financial Advisors in Tomball, TX promised to make the college and financial aid application processes virtually stress free for us by making sure we made all of the submission deadlines, and get us the most financial aid possible by only submitting the minimum required financial information.   Jeff Farmer didn't complete my daughter's UT profile on time causing us to have to file a last minute appeal. This resulted in her not being accepted to the school. He filed our FAFSA and CSS profile with incorrect information.

When I pointed out that he entered $318K instead of $10K for the retirement account on the CSS Profile he said that number doesn't factor into need based aid. I confirmed with a university financial aid counselor that it does. He lied. He also told us erroneously that if we just ignored the request to provide the noncustodial parent's profile the schools would forget about it and award need based aid. This was not true and cost me additional time and money to submit it myself at the eleventh hour. As a result one of the school's my daughter was accepted to was unable to provide any need based aid because they had already dispersed all the funds for the school year.

They gave us false hope that private universities cover the gap between the cost of attendance and the expected family contribution. I have since learned that not all of them do cover 100% need, and their counselor convinced my daughter to apply to ones that don't. She fell in love with University of Miami and was heartbroken when she found out, two days before the commitment deadline, that they don’t cover 100% of need and there was no way we could afford to send her there.

They also promised personalized service and their availability. The counselor who met my daughter in person later referred to her as a him in an email to me, and most of the times I've called the office I've gotten voice mail. Messages have rarely been returned. I have sent an email requesting a refund and have not gotten a reply. The actual money we have paid to them is $4741.75, but we estimate that the loss of financial aid from schools is as much as $150,000. I have the signed agreement, a 100% satisfaction or your money back guarantee and emails to back up my claims against them.

We have filed a claim with the Better Business Bureau. They responded by blaming me and my 17 year old daughter for their failure to uphold the promises they made to us. Mr. Farmer also stated that they are attempting to contact me to resolve the issues. That is a lie. I have not been contacted by phone, email or US post.

I have also submitted complaints to the TX OAG department of Consumer Protection and the Federal Trade Commission. I have spoken to an attorney who said I probably have a case under the Texas Deceptive Trade Protection Act, but that it might be hard to prove because of the deliberately vague verbiage in the agreement we signed for their services.

We want to stop these people from preying on unsuspecting and overwhelmed families. We don't want them to disappoint any more kids when they find out there was never any real chance of being able to go to their dream school. Please help us stop them from preying on other families.