A Nevada operator just got the industry death penalty. Under a proposed order filed in federal court, Dennise Merdjanian would be permanently barred from debt relief and telemarketing for life, plus a monetary judgment north of $45.9 million.
I went back to the original November 2024 complaint: the FTC alleged Superior Servicing LLC and Merdjanian impersonated the Department of Education and promised loan forgiveness that never came. The court froze assets and temporarily stopped the operation before the case ever reached this settlement stage.
The $45.9 million judgment is mostly theater. It’s “partially suspended” for inability to pay, standard FTC boilerplate in these settlements. But there’s a trigger clause: if Merdjanian is found to have misrepresented her finances, the full amount comes due immediately. That’s the real deterrent, not the number on the page.
This closes out a three-defendant pattern. Eric Caldwell and David Hernandez already got permanently banned from debt relief in September 2025, with Caldwell also barred from telemarketing and Hernandez barred from violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule. Three operators, three lifetime industry bans, one shuttered maze of shell entities. The FTC is treating student loan forgiveness scams the way it once treated robocall rings: ban first, chase the money later.
The corporate defendants got hit with a default order, meaning nobody even bothered contesting the underlying facts. Worth remembering next time a “loan forgiveness” call claims a Department of Education affiliation.
Rebecca Lauren