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

[bubblesinthesky]

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.

It's none of your beeswax - haven't you got better things to be doing with your life? You're envious of what he's done, aren't you? Great friend you are.

Was a student during this period, too. SLC are crap at getting people to cough up, not like now when they can track graduates through (I understand) tax or/and N.I. I graduated 13 years ago and could still either be deferring now if I wanted to (without giving them proof of what I earn), or I could leave a blank trail like your 'friend' has done. Lots of folks do either this. Me, I'm nearly done now paying.

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...

Yes, that. Let us know, eh?

Jam - I'm a current university fee payer so I know how they work.

I wasn't implying next week the fees going to go up for me to cover this twat fee invader the OP knows; I was talking about long term fee increases.

Why should people like myself pay these increased fees when someone else proudly admits to dodging theirs? He isn't just stealing from the fee people, he's stealing from everybody.

Hope your spite doesn't come back to bite you on the arse, OP.

It's not fraud though, running from student loans. It is evasion.

I actually wouldn't shop anyone for benefit fraid, as, while I think it is wrong, it is a tiny tiny drop in the ocean compared to corporate tax fraud.
I know loads of people who would shop someone claiming disability and doing the odd bit of free lance work.
My God, they would be frothing self righteously about "our tax money". Strangely, the same people accept that large companies pay zero tax, and we have to fund the NHS etc without their help.
Much easier to pick on a peer than address the things that actually affect us (and sorry, but a guy evading a near 20 yr old loan doesn't affect a damn thing in the scheme of things).

Buy the fees incurred are only inflation aren't they or are the new ones different?

And, yes, the student loans company is a private finance company.

Re: the fact that he is self-employed.

Isn't this a bit like the CSA trying to get money of someone self-employed? The unscrupulous seem to be able to wriggle out of it by making it look as if they earn less than they do.

His only mistake was telling you that he had got away with it. Some friend you are for asking the question. Good luck to him. I have walked away from every debt I ever had. It is called bankruptcy. So very easy.

Sorry Jam toast, but did you bother to read what I actually wrote?

There"s no free money,FasterStronger, ?really? i would suggest Hmm thinks a bit,oh i remember now, one say Philip Green> thats the billionaire bloke who own a lot of whats in/on the high st , having his empire in the name of his beautiful wife who ,surprisingly, is faffing about in Monaco, therefore paying a smidge of tax on British earnings ,instead of the gazillions he would pay to Britain if his tax affairs were otherwise, funnily ,thats "smart use of current tax laws" oh thats ok then ,and as other post suggests , (like your soon to be X friend) ,he was probably talking piss,as a lot of fellas do, when chatting to their mate.

he's a thief. Shop him.

all those who say 'let him get away with it' - would you feel the same if you were burgled?

andu - do you think PG would stay resident here if he was forced to pay significantly more tax?

I don't. so how do you tax someone who will move countries if you apply in their view too much taxation to them?

however I fail to see how the govt difficulties in personally taxing a highly mobile person relate to another taking the States money that was lent to them on the basis it would be repaid if their finances allowed.

I would say tell them where he is. He might be able to wriggle out of paying being selfemployed, but possibly not.

I don't agree with what he is doing but don't think you need to get involved. They will catch up with him or maybe not. None of your business though.

Not your business I'm afraid. Good luck to him. Why should it only be the big corporations who fuck around paying what they're due? If it was me or my kids I would tell them to do the same.

Besides I thought the students loans company was a private company? As your friend is a tax payer he could see it as a personal rebate for the bail out

I know someone who hasn't paid back their student loans. Finished uni in 1998. She occasionally gets letters from them but just bins them. Is this debt now statute barred as she seems to believe it is?

Loans taken out back then run out after 25 years so she won't have to pay after that. Your friend took out loans when I did, then university fees didnt exist, the loans were merely for living expenses. They were not linked to your employer. The payments are taken by direct debit from your account which you supply through a direct debit agreement.

When I cancelled a payment (as they didnt act on time for my deferment) they just wrote me a letter asking why. They didnt have the authority to just take the money from my account. I believe the new loans are totally different and linked to national insurance etc. I imagine if I closed my account, the Slc company would not be able to just take money. Of course I'd imagine they'd pursue it in other ways though in your friends case, maybe they don't.

Good luck to him. I have walked away from every debt I ever had. It is called bankruptcy. So very easy.

It's a good job we don't all do that, because everyone else has to pick up the tab for it.

We would probably be (quite rightly) classed as cheating cunts if we all let someone else pick up our debts instead of paying them off.

Good luck to him. I have walked away from every debt I ever had. It is called bankruptcy. So very easy.

Scummer.

Why would you stay in touch with somebody you're not friends with?

Is this really what we have come to.

"As an aside, those graduates who attended uni in the 80s not only received grants (subject to parental income) but could also claim housing benefit and dole in the holidays."

Early 80s, wasn't it? By the time I started university in 1985, housing benefit was on its way out, iirc (I wasn't claiming it as I lived at home). I didn't claim the dole in the holidays either, I worked, so I don't know when that stopped.

That would annoy me! I have never earned enough to have to pay mine back but I did. Actually DH paid the last bit off for me as a surprise, it was lovely knowing I no longer had it hanging over me.

I had to give 2 references when I applied for my first student loan. I know one of those references were contacted when they lost track of me after I become a sahm.

For info I will never go back to work, so I shall never pay mine back either. I fill out a referral form every year.

I started Uni in Oct 86 and got HB