CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred for Deceiving Students and Hiding Loan Costs

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an order against BloomTech and its CEO, Austen Allred, for deceiving students about the cost of loans and making false claims about graduates’ hiring rates. The CFPB found that BloomTech and Allred falsely told students the school’s “income share” agreement contracts were not loans, when in fact the agreements were loans carrying an average finance charge of around $4,000. BloomTech and Allred lured prospective enrollees with inflated promises of job-placement rates as high as 86 percent, when the company’s internal metrics showed placement rates closer to 50 percent and in some cases as low as 30 percent. The order permanently bans BloomTech from all consumer-lending activities and bans Allred from any student-lending activities for ten years. The CFPB is also ordering BloomTech and Allred to cease collecting payments on income share loans for graduates who did not have a qualifying job, eliminate finance changes for certain agreements, and allow students the option to withdraw without penalty. BloomTech and Allred must also pay over $164,000 in civil penalties, which will be deposited in the CFPB’s victims relief fund.

“BloomTech and its CEO sought to drive students toward income share loans that were marketed as risk-free, but in fact carried significant finance charges and many of the same risks as other credit products,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. “Today’s action underscores our increased focus on investigating individual executives and, when appropriate, charging them with breaking the law.”

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