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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to feel like phoning the student loans company and giving them this person's full details?

146 replies

bubblesinthesky · 27/04/2013 17:01

I was at university with someone in the mid 1990s when student loans were just being brought in. He took the full loans but always said he would never pay them back if he could help it. I've stayed in touch with him and recently I mentioned i was happy because I'd finally finished paying my loans back.

He laughed and told me the Student Loans Company had lost track of him years ago and there was no way they'd ever get the money back off him now. He has a really common name so I imagine he would be hard to track down.

AIBU to be considering telling them where he is or should I just leave it? It seems so unfair when he's earning way more than me and has a huge house that he's dodging them in this way while others are struggling to pay them back.

OP posts:

Longdistance · 27/04/2013 18:14

Don't worry, just leave it.

Karma will come and bite him on his arse soon :)

Snazzynewyear · 27/04/2013 18:19

I would shop him. He knew he was incurring the debt - much less than is the case with students now - and he should pay his debt.

TheChaoGoesMu · 27/04/2013 18:20

I guess you're not friends with this person then. You won't be after you shop him in thats for sure.

mrsfassbender · 27/04/2013 18:23

this is a tough one but I am amazed they have lost him when its all done via NI number. I agree that karma will get him, don't get involved.

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii · 27/04/2013 18:28

Shop him . I see it as theft.

My DC's will have to pay £9000 a year tuition fees I don't think they should contribute to paying off your ex friends debt.

MummytoKatie · 27/04/2013 18:30

If Op went to university in the mid 90s then she (and he) did get a free education. Tuition fees didn't come in until 1998.

So the money was not for his education - it was for living expenses while getting the education.

Just thought I'd point that out in case it changed anyone's mind.

Personally I would say that this is much worse than a benefit cheat (that mumsnet is usually totally for reporting!)as he always planned to do it and in no way needs the money.

Have to admit I'd struggle to report though for either this or a benefit cheat although I'd want to as I always struggle with "trigger pullin" decisions. (1938, have a gun, Hitler, for example.)

jamtoast12 · 27/04/2013 18:32

I second what I said before, its not worth you shopping him as he's self employed!!! No one who is self employed declares their true income - that's the main benefit of being self employed. He will find out, he still wont 'earn enough' to lay and you will look bitter and jealous.

as for threw students, its estimated more than half will never pay back theirs either.

jamtoast12 · 27/04/2013 18:32

For new students...

Billwoody · 27/04/2013 18:38

Jam toast you are talking crap - I am self employed and I declare my full income. Are you and don't you? Is this why you hold that view?

FlowersBlown · 27/04/2013 18:39

I wouldn't shop him. I would be interesting to know what the repayment rates are on those early loans. It is incredibly easy to get out of paying them because they rely on self disclosure of income. If you change bank account and your parents have moved house they don't seem to be able to find you either.

jamtoast12 · 27/04/2013 18:42

I am not self employed... I'm actually a teacher but don't earn enough to pay mine back. If i did, i would have to pay and i have to defer every year so very much in the system.

I do know lots of people who are self employed and its pretty common amongst most I know. Indeed i have a few friends who work as subcontract accountants for companies and they know every trick in the book about fiddling incomes. It's pretty much standard in many companies even if you don't do it.

(I'm not saying I agree with it just that even the most 'honest' of companies have ways of dividing their income for tax purposes etc.

ryanboy · 27/04/2013 18:45

whay would you want to do that? Jealousy and spitefulness are so often dressed up as social conscience on mumsnet

jamtoast12 · 27/04/2013 18:49

flowersblown

On the old loans I have (from say 1996-2002) you need to earn approx £2450 gross before you need to pay and you pay back about £30 per loan per month. This is a set rate once you hit this threshold. You can defer if you earn less and they are wiped out after 25 years (I believe the new loans wipe out too in this way but you pay a % back - from conversations with friends kids etc, the repayments on the new loans are less than the old ones for those on average incomes but obviously more on higher incomes compared to the old loans). (Given most have 3-4 loans).

expatinscotland · 27/04/2013 18:49

Shop him. There is NO such thing as 'karma', what a load of steaming wank.

Billwoody · 27/04/2013 18:50

JT you make a good point. I have an accountant myself and I find i do not always take his advice. It upsets me that others think that all self employed take the piss though.
OP you should shop him - as others have said he has taken money that does not belong to him, had a free education and is of the age as I am that will have benefited hugely from house price inflation.
And he deserves it for being a crowing arse. .

ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmmmmmmmmm · 27/04/2013 18:58

Listen to all the people telling you it's none of your business, it's envy on your part, it's someones elses fault.

Spookily, the very same posters will be back on other threads moaning and hand wringing about cuts to government spending.

Completely oblivious to any connection.

MummytoMog · 27/04/2013 19:07

Still paying mine back, started in 1998. Shop the fucker.

AKissIsNotAContract · 27/04/2013 19:12

I wouldn't shop him, it's none of your business.

I don't agree that a self employed person using an accountant to use legal ways of lowering a tax bill is taking the piss. Self employed people get no paid holiday, basic maternity, harder to get a mortgage etc. They need something to balance that out.

HoHoHoNoYouDont · 27/04/2013 19:21

I'm sure I read once that there is a certain amount of time they have to make you pay and if they can't find you within that time you're basically home and dry. Off to google it.

QueenOfIndecision · 27/04/2013 19:22

i would probably shop him as it's stealing from all of us really.

HoHoHoNoYouDont · 27/04/2013 19:24

debt clicky link

FasterStronger · 27/04/2013 19:30

I would shop him. There is no free money.

zeno · 27/04/2013 19:32

I'm surprised at the presumption that self employed people do not declare their incomes. Do you realise how rude it is to say that?

IntheFrame · 27/04/2013 19:32

Well I hope you tell him that you are planning to do this. Because obviously as a moral person you have the courage of your convictions...

jamtoast12 · 27/04/2013 19:32

I don't understand how anyone from that era of loans is still paying back unless you have all been deferring? The loans back then were designed so that all debt was paid back after 5 years? The payments per loan ensured that? (and they we independent of income as long as above threshold)

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