Legal Question in Consumer Law in Maryland

I work for a company that does document preparation to enroll qualified people into the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loans Program, the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program, the Public Service Forgiveness Program and the Disability Discharge Program. We only charge a document processing fee after we do the work, but before the new loan is issued or the programs approved, since we have no control or participation in the end result of these applications. For the Direct Loans Program, we provide a written guarantee that if the loan is denied due to our company error, all fees will be refunded. Since the DOE just changed the enrollment process, a LPOA is now required to prepare the docs, which wasn't needed before when all the original docs were signed by the borrower/applicant. We charge very modest fees and no reoccurring fees, which is an outright scam. We also go out of our way to educate people on all the aspects and options of these programs, which is more than their current student loan servicers do or the Dept of Education, for that matter. In cases where there is no benefit to the prospect or that prospect does not qualify, we make that position clear to the prospect. For people already enrolled in the DL program, we explain the benefits and options to them, since in every single case, the prospect has no idea what loan they are in or what choices are available to them. We do this, even though we know we will not benefit from this. Our company is trying to do right by these people, and the owners are very ethical people who pay us a living wage, do not pay commission and they perform a time- and work-intensive service for a very modest amount of money.

Now a local lawyer is telling the owners of the company that this document preparation is exactly like the Debt Settlement industry and it falls under the same laws and guidelines, even though we do not collect client funds, hold them in escrow, nor do we negotiate specific terms with the Department of Education. This lawyer, who is making a fortune by promoting himself as an �expert� in this field, is telling us that we cannot charge any fees until the loans are funded or applicants are accepted into these programs. I worked for over 12 years in Consumer Protection, Credit Counseling and Debt Management, and this business is nothing like DMP or DS, it is merely preparing documents and educating consumers. I have tried to locate this stipulation in the current federal and state laws, and I cannot find it anywhere. Is this attorney correct, or is this just some scam he cooked up to collect a lot of money from a suddenly very crowded industry of student loan assistance companies, many of whom charge outrageous amounts of money and do little or no work that benefits people struggling with federal student loans?

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