When business communication faculty cover persuasive communication, let’s include a discussion of how students can protect themselves. This CNBC article identifies a few popular scams this summer, including a growing number of fake student loan forgiveness offers.

This Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a warning and three ways for people to avoid falling victim to these loan scams:

• Never pay for help with your student loans.

• Don’t give away your FSA ID login information.

• Don’t trust anyone who contacts you promising debt relief or loan forgiveness, even if they say they're affiliated with the Department of Education.

These points seem obvious—until we fall victim. Companies use emotional appeals (excitement about loan forgiveness, confusion about the process), logical arguments (easy steps to follow for a quick decision and payments cancelled), and credibility (official-looking design, claims to be the Department of Education).

Students can bring their own examples of unethical persuasion and discuss the results. Have they been duped in the past? What aspects of logical argument, emotional appeal, or credibility persuaded them to do something they regretted?

It might be early to discuss the loan-forgiveness scams with undergraduates, but we can hope they remember the message for other examples of unethical persuasion.