MyRichUncle
MyRichUncle was a loan product that was marketed to students by the American company MRU Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: UNCL). Incorporated March 2, 2000 in Delaware, MyRichUncle entered the student lending market as an originator and holder of private student loans. By 2007, the company was listed on the Naqdaq composite and expanded into holding Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) loans. It was one of the first companies to use credit algorithms, combined with traditional credit scoring, to determine the terms a student's loan would carry. These proprietary analytic models and decision tools were positioned as a "human capital investment" approach to underwriting student loans. In 2007, MyRichUncle ran a New York Times advertising campaign that publicized the practice of financial aid offices having relationships with student loan companies. The New York Attorney General, Andrew M. Cuomo, launched an investigation into deceptive marketing practices in the student loan industry shortly thereafter, the result of which was a marketing code of conduct that eight lenders (Campus Door, EduCap, GMAC Bank, Graduate Loan Associates, Nelnet, NextStudent, Xanthus Financial Services, and MyRichUncle) agreed to follow. Between May 2005 and September 2008, MRU Holdings, the parent holding company of MyRichUncle, originated over $550 million