How we collect, use, protect and share your personal information — and the rights you have over it under U.S. federal and state privacy laws.
Jump to any section. Section 17 explains how to submit a privacy request or exercise your rights.
Notice of Call Recording: All telephone calls, video calls, voicemails, text (SMS/MMS) messages, web chats, and other electronic communications between you and Private Student Loan Aid may be recorded, transcribed, monitored, and stored for quality assurance, training, dispute resolution, regulatory compliance, fraud prevention, and recordkeeping purposes. By continuing to communicate with us through any of these channels, you consent to such recording, transcription, monitoring, and storage to the fullest extent permitted by applicable federal and state law (including, where applicable, the laws of all-party-consent jurisdictions).
This Online Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) applies to the website privatestudentloanaid.com (also referred to in this Policy as “PSLA,” “Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). This Policy also applies to any landing pages, sub-domains, online forms, telephone interactions, SMS/MMS messaging programs, email correspondence, social media properties owned by us, and any other online or offline interface that links to or references this Policy (each, a “Site,” and collectively, the “Sites”).
This Policy describes how we collect, use, retain, protect, share, and disclose your personal information, the choices available to you regarding our use of that information, and how you may exercise rights you may have under applicable U.S. federal, state, and (where relevant) foreign privacy laws.
Please read this Policy carefully. By accessing or using our Sites, submitting information through any of our forms (including privatestudentloanaid.com/apply/), communicating with us, or engaging our services, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to the practices described in this Policy and in our Terms of Service. If you do not agree with this Policy, you must not use our Sites or services.
Private Student Loan Aid is a consulting and matching organization that educates former college students and their cosigners about their options for private (non-federal) student loan debt, chiefly consumer-driven debt validation under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq.), together with eligibility counseling and consolidation counseling. We currently serve clients in 48 U.S. states.
You acknowledge and agree, in connection with this Policy, that:
We collect the following categories of personal information, as those categories are defined under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (collectively, the “CCPA”), and analogous categories under other applicable state privacy laws:
We collect personal information from the following categories of sources: (i) directly from you (forms, calls, emails, SMS, chats, documents you upload or send us); (ii) automatically through your use of the Sites (cookies, pixels, SDKs, server logs, analytics tools); (iii) from your devices and browsers; (iv) from our Provider Partner, service providers, and vendors who help us deliver and maintain the Sites and services; (v) from credit-reporting agencies, lenders, servicers, debt collectors, debt buyers, courts, and public records, where you have authorized us to obtain such records or where the records are otherwise lawfully available; (vi) from advertising and analytics partners; (vii) from social-media platforms when you interact with our pages or click our ads; and (viii) from referring third parties, affiliates, or marketing partners with whom you have requested information about debt-relief options.
We use personal information for the following business and commercial purposes, in each case to the extent permitted by law:
No Automated Decision-Making with Legal Effect. We do not use solely-automated decision-making technology (ADMT) to make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects concerning you (for example, eligibility decisions made without any human review). Where we use automated tools to support our work, qualified personnel review the output before any consequential decision is made.
We share personal information only as described below, and only to the extent necessary for the purposes described:
PSLA does not sell your personal information for monetary consideration. We have never sold personal information, we do not currently sell information, and we do not intend to do so in the future. We do not sell or share the personal information of consumers of any age, including consumers under sixteen (16). To the extent that any data-sharing for online advertising or analytics could be deemed a “sale” or “sharing” for cross-context behavioral advertising under the CCPA or similar laws, we honor opt-out signals (including the Global Privacy Control / GPC) and provide a “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” mechanism on our Sites and through the contact methods listed in Section 17.
By voluntarily submitting your information through our website, landing pages, online forms, or any other consent capture, and by checking the applicable consent box, you provide your prior express written consent — for purposes of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), the FCC’s implementing regulations (47 C.F.R. § 64.1200), the Telemarketing Sales Rule (16 C.F.R. Part 310), and analogous state laws — for PSLA, our Provider Partner, and our authorized service providers acting on our behalf to contact you at the telephone number(s) and email address(es) you provided, including:
The communications may relate to free consultations, eligibility, service updates, follow-up on your inquiry or file, scheduling, document requests, promotional offers, educational content, and other matters related to private student loan options. Consent is not a condition of purchase or of obtaining services. Standard message and data rates may apply for SMS/MMS. Message frequency varies based on your engagement.
Outside of our regular live-agent business hours, certain inbound and outbound telephone communications are handled by an automated AI voice agent routed through our contact-center platform. The AI voice agent uses natural-language conversational technology and is identified as an artificial / AI-generated voice consistent with applicable FCC rules and TCPA disclosures (47 C.F.R. § 64.1200). Your consent to receive communications by AI-generated voice technology is included in the prior-express-written-consent framework described above in this Section 6.
The AI voice agent is designed to provide informational responses, capture eligibility intake, schedule callbacks with a live specialist, and handle basic service questions. The AI voice agent does not make eligibility decisions, does not finalize engagements, and does not deliver legal, tax, or financial advice. Any consequential decision regarding your file is reviewed by a qualified human specialist before action is taken (see Section 4, “No Automated Decision-Making with Legal Effect”). If at any point you prefer to speak with a live person rather than the AI agent, you may say “agent,” “representative,” or “human,” or request a callback during live-agent hours.
The AI voice agent operates during overnight hours (live agents staff the daytime hours). Outbound calls are scheduled to comply with TCPA quiet-hour restrictions applicable to your local time of residence (generally 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM local time under 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(c)(1)), and applicable state quiet-hour rules, even when our agents and the AI voice agent operate outside those windows. Inbound calls you initiate to us at any hour will be answered by the AI voice agent during off-hours; you may also leave a voicemail for callback by a live specialist during business hours (Mon–Fri 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM PST, Sat 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM PST).
All AI-handled communications are recorded, transcribed, monitored, and stored consistent with the disclosures in this Section 6 and in Section 8 (Data Security), and consistent with the Notice of Call Recording at the top of this Policy. Recordings and transcripts are retained per Section 9 (Data Retention) and are accessible to the same categories of authorized personnel and service providers described in Section 5.
Opt-Out Rights. You may revoke your consent at any time and free of charge through any reasonable method, including the following:
Once you revoke consent through one of the methods above, we will treat your revocation as applying to all marketing channels for which you can identify yourself, in accordance with applicable law and FCC rules. We may continue to send transactional and service-related messages necessary to administer any services you have requested or contracted for. We maintain written records of consent and revocation as required by law.
The Sites use cookies, web beacons, pixel tags, software development kits (SDKs), local storage, session-replay tools, and similar technologies (collectively, “Tracking Technologies”) to recognize your device, remember your preferences, measure Site performance, prevent fraud, deliver targeted advertising, and provide analytics. Categories include:
You can manage cookies through our on-site Cookie-Consent banner, your browser settings, and tools provided by ad-industry self-regulatory programs (such as the DAA WebChoices tool and the NAI opt-out). Disabling certain cookies may limit Site functionality. The deployment, configuration, and management of certain advertising tags, conversion pixels, analytics scripts, and remarketing audiences on our Sites is performed by our authorized third-party agency under our written instructions, as further described in Section 5.
Global Privacy Control (GPC) / Do-Not-Track. Our Sites recognize and honor browser-based opt-out signals such as GPC for residents of jurisdictions where GPC is recognized as a valid opt-out of “sale” or “sharing.” Because there is no industry consensus regarding traditional “Do Not Track” (DNT) browser signals, we generally do not respond to DNT, but we honor GPC.
We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, use, alteration, disclosure, loss, or destruction, in a manner reasonably designed to comply with applicable law (including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act Safeguards Rule, 16 C.F.R. Part 314, for the financial information we maintain). Safeguards include access controls, encryption in transit and (where appropriate) at rest, multi-factor authentication, vendor due-diligence and written-contract requirements, employee training, incident-response procedures, and periodic security testing.
No method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to protect your information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security, and you provide your personal information at your own risk. If we become aware of a security incident affecting your personal information, we will notify you and applicable regulators in accordance with applicable law.
We retain personal information for as long as needed to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, to provide the services you requested, to comply with our legal, tax, accounting, audit, and regulatory obligations (which may require retention for several years after the end of the engagement), to resolve disputes, to enforce our agreements, and to defend or pursue legal claims. When personal information is no longer needed for these purposes, we delete, de-identify, or aggregate it in accordance with our records-retention schedule and applicable law.
We use and disclose sensitive personal information (such as SSN, government-issued ID numbers, financial-account information, and the contents of your communications with us) only for the purposes expressly permitted under California Civil Code § 1798.121(a) and analogous provisions of other state laws, including: (i) to perform the services you reasonably expect from us; (ii) to detect, prevent, and respond to security incidents and fraudulent or illegal activity; (iii) to verify and maintain the quality and safety of our services; (iv) to comply with law and legal process; and (v) for the limited additional purposes permitted by regulation. We do not use sensitive personal information to infer characteristics about you for advertising.
To protect our clients and prospective clients from impersonation, phishing, and consumer-relief scams, we want you to know:
If you suspect that someone is impersonating PSLA, please notify us promptly at privacy@privatestudentloanaid.com and consider filing a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov and your state attorney general.
If you are a California resident, you have the following rights, subject to verification and certain exceptions:
If you are a resident of Virginia (VCDPA), Colorado (CPA), Connecticut (CTDPA), Utah (UCPA), Texas (TDPSA), Oregon (OCPA), Montana (MCDPA), Iowa (ICDPA), Tennessee (TIPA), Indiana (INCDPA), New Hampshire, New Jersey, Delaware (DPDPA), Minnesota, Maryland (MODPA), Rhode Island, Kentucky, Nebraska, or another U.S. state with a comprehensive consumer-privacy law, you may have rights similar to those described above — including the right to access, correct, delete, port, opt out of targeted advertising and certain profiling, and (in some states) opt out of the sale of personal data and limit use of sensitive personal data. Florida residents who qualify under the Florida Digital Bill of Rights have additional rights regarding sensitive data and certain large-platform processors. Nevada residents may opt out of the sale of certain covered information under NRS 603A.
To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the methods in Section 17. Where the relevant law provides for an appeal of our decision, you may appeal by replying to our response within sixty (60) days. If your appeal is denied, you may contact your state attorney general.
If you are an active-duty service member or a covered dependent, you may have additional protections under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and the Military Lending Act. Please tell us so that we can take those protections into account.
Our services are directed to U.S. residents in the 48 states we serve. We do not market services in the European Union, European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or Switzerland. If you are a resident of one of those regions and choose to interact with our Sites, we process your personal information based on (a) your consent, (b) the necessity of taking pre-contractual or contractual steps you request, (c) our legitimate interests (including operating and securing the Sites), and/or (d) compliance with legal obligations. You may have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection, portability, and the right to lodge a complaint with your supervisory authority. Contact us at the addresses in Section 17 to exercise these rights. Personal information we receive will be processed in the United States, which may not provide the same level of data protection as your home jurisdiction; by interacting with the Sites you acknowledge this transfer.
To the extent we are deemed a “financial institution” under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (15 U.S.C. § 6801 et seq.) for purposes of any specific service we provide to you, we will provide you with a separate GLBA Privacy Notice describing the information we collect, the parties with whom we share it, and your right to opt out of certain disclosures. The GLBA Privacy Notice supplements (but does not replace) this Policy.
Our Sites and services are intended for adults who are at least eighteen (18) years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under thirteen (13) in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) or from minors in violation of applicable state law. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately at privacy@privatestudentloanaid.com so that we can delete the information.
Our Sites may contain links to, or content from, third-party websites, applications, plug-ins, or services (including social-media platforms). Those third parties operate independently of PSLA and have their own privacy practices. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of third parties. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of every third-party site or service you visit.
We may update this Policy from time to time. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page indicates when this Policy was last revised. Material changes will be communicated by posting a prominent notice on the Sites and, where required by law, by direct notice to you. Your continued use of the Sites after the effective date of an update constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.
If you have questions about this Policy, wish to exercise any of the rights described above, or wish to submit a complaint, please contact us using one of the following methods. To help us respond promptly, please describe the nature of your request and provide enough information to allow us to verify your identity.
Authorized agents acting on a consumer’s behalf must provide written authorization signed by the consumer and information sufficient to verify the agent’s authority. We may require the consumer to verify their own identity directly with us or to confirm with us that they have provided the agent with permission to submit the request.
Subject to applicable law and to the limitations of liability set forth in our Terms of Service, our liability for any privacy-related claim is limited as set forth in those Terms. Nothing in this Policy excludes or limits any liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law, including (where applicable) any non-waivable rights under the CCPA. The information and educational content on the Sites is provided “as is” for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, tax, or financial advice from a licensed professional.
This Policy is governed by the laws of the State applicable to Private Student Loan Aid’s principal place of business, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles, except where mandatory consumer-protection laws of your state of residence provide otherwise. Any dispute arising out of or relating to this Policy shall be resolved in accordance with the dispute-resolution provisions (including the binding individual arbitration agreement and class-action waiver) set forth in our Terms of Service.
If any provision of this Policy is held to be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, that provision shall be enforced to the maximum extent permissible, and the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect.
