9 in class of 2026 have had identities stolen

By Kyle Troutman [email protected]

A nationwide financial aid scam has affected numerous Cassville seniors, who have had to confirm their identities to the federal government after their Social Security numbers had already been used to set up student aid accounts.

Jennifer McCrackin, high school counselor, said nine students have been affected this year, and one was affected last year.

“What happens is when they create an account to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), they put in their Social Security number and it says an account has already been set up using that number,” she said. “When it first happened, it caught us off-guard because we’d never seen it before. We’d heard of it, but hadn’t seen it.

“We had one, then we had two, and we are up to nine now. We don’t have totals on kids who have completed it this year, but we’ve heard other districts have had the same issue.”

McCrackin said when the situation arises, the student must provide specified documentation and take a photo with their ID to send to the FAFSA administrators. The process to recover their account takes about 14 days.

“We recommend to kids to run a credit report, because that would show if a scammer has created a fraudulent online banking account, which is where they transfer the student aid money to,” she said. “We also recommend getting the FAFSA completed sooner rather than later, should this issue occur and February deadlines are approaching. We’ve sent messages to senior parents because we’ve seen issues like this.”

McCrackin said other than running a credit report, there are no real preventative measures to be taken. Instead, the remedy is reactive, and has the 14-day timeline.

“We’re already telling junior parents to run credit reports to try to stay ahead of it,” she said. 

Jamie Porter, administrative assistant in the counselor’s office, has been facilitating the account recovery process.

“Because of privacy laws, we can’t talk to anyone with FAFSA and get it fixed, but we can help with the process,” McCrackin said. “Everyone who has come in for assistance so far is up to date except for one we are still helping them work on.”