To have lost it with the guy on the phone to my student loan?

[Gertrudesings]

I just lost it. Really lost it.

I have x3 student loans 1 for my under graduate, one for post graduate diploma and one for my masters.

I pay 140 a month for my masters, one for my 128 for my undergraduate and 60 for my PGDip so £328 a month.

I have 3dcs, lone parent and earn 26k a year.

The government sold my undergraduate loan to a private company, Erudio. I didn't know they had sold it as my abusive EXH wouldn't give me any post from the marital home (that he stayed in as I got removed by the police for safety reasons). So it went into arrears but I've been paying it back. They are very aggressive. They just phoned me to 'review' my account. Made me give every single outgoing and incoming item and he announces I can 'afford' to pay another £101 a month because I have 300 'disposable' income. For fucking food and childcare! I can not pay another £101 on top of the £328. They don't count childcare costs and I don't do anything or go anywhere so I do have a bit extra a month but that's for the DC's stuff. I don't get maintenance.

AIBU for losing it? I live in my overdraft. I've got credit card debt because if my washer breaks or the kids have a birthday or the car breaks I've got nothing left in my budget. I don't mind paying back my student debt but I can't pay a quarter of my income out to it. I've cut back so much already. I'm sat here crying because the guy made out I'm some kind of leech.

YADNBU!!!

Erudio are utter, utter bastards. I had written confirmation from the Student Loans Company that I was eligible to defer repayments for the year I was on maternity leave, when Erudio helped themselves to the loan payment anyway from bank account, before either company had written to me to say my loans had been sold! Phoned and Erudio were no help, but the bank immediately refunded me under the Direct Debit guarantee. I also got a random compensation payment from them about a year later.

Agree contact Martin Lewis and MSE, they were great at putting pressure on Erudio when they made such a hash following this batch of loans being sold, and because I made a fuss on social media, my Tweets were read out on Radio 5 and I was recorded for Martin Lewis for a program he did on Radio 4!

Annoyingly 2 of my loans were sold to Thesis, and 1 to Erudio, so I still have to do my annual deferment through the Student Loans company (I haven’t worked since redundancy a couple of years ago). If there’s an issue, I end up going round in circles speaking to all three companies, none of whom will take any responsibility or attempt to help, all suggesting I ring the other company.

It’s scandalous that the government sold these loans to private companies for a fraction of their value, companies who are now putting pressure on people who aren’t earning typical graduate salaries, and are sometimes vulnerable, to make repayments, and try to alter or reinterpret the deferment terms we agreed to when we took the loans out all those years ago.

Best of luck OP

They say £2427, so double check, but sounds promising. Make you you also request a refund for the last couple of payments.

Talk to stepchange. They really will help and they will deal with the loan companies on your behalf.

You can apply for deferment on line so you can take your time, check the figures slowly and printout what you submit. It's much better than going thru your figures over the phone when you have no records of what was said

It’s a crap system, I have found the SLC to be so bad they are useless.

You will receive 13 lots of child benefit in the year so make sure that doesn't take you over.

The guy on the phone was really dismissive when I was discussing deferment. He just kept on banging on about these arrears and how the account can go under review at anytime and he 'passed on'.

Tomorrow I'm going to do a round robin to Step Change, Martin Lewis and my MP. Even without the extra £100 for arrears I'm still paying £326 a month on student loans and I don't think a single income household with the 3dcs should have to bear the weight of that.

It's complicated (and very outing) why I don't get maintenance but I never will do that isn't an option.

Thanks for everyone's help. I feel much calmer and like I might get on top if this now. I very nearly applied for a personal loan to just get all 3 loans in one place and away from Erudio.

By my calculations your income of 2162.38 plus one twelfth of your child benefit = 2370.81, so still under the threshold. So erudio can go fuck themselves.

50 quid! 50 quid under!

Thank you Glitter

Do double check it!

The refund will be nice for Christmas as well, if I'm right. 😁

Also remember the loan is written off after 25 years i think it is.

Is it only me thinking that your child benefits shouldn't be taken into account? I'm no expert in this, but I know it's a none taxable income

My SLC student loans were sold to Erudio and I was never in arrears. People need to realise that this can happen.

Like the OP I took student loans out in the late 1990s and was a low earner throughout my 20s and early 30s due to working in the charity sector then years of postgraduate study. I was never in arrears, I just always deferred payment annually because I never earned anywhere near the threshold.

Suddenly, one day I got a letter saying my loans had been sold to Erudio. Luckily I was in a position at around the same time to start paying them back as I then earned in the late £20k region - it took 16 years to get to that earning level! I finally paid them off just before turning 40.

It was a millstone round my neck and bear in mind in the 90s my loans were piffling compared with what they are today (I think I borrowed about £2k a year max for three years).

I don’t know why people dismiss student loan debt today as if it’s nothing and the student loan co will always look after you - as I say, I was never in arrears. I understand my loans were pretty elderly, but I still don’t really understand how they were allowed to just sell them.

OP wishing you best of luck and hoping Stepchange etc can help you

Erudio are wankers. I’ve deferred mine for years because I’ve not met the earnings threshold. Suddenly one year despite deferment they randomly took whacking great payments out of my account. It took the six months to sort out. I kept speaking to different people on the phone who kept apologising and saying they had sorted it but it was all bollocks. Eventually I got a begrudging sorry but not sorry and £100 for the trouble. That didn’t go anywhere near to covering the bank charges and bounced payments. So YANBU.

Child Benefit is taken into account. As are tax credits. I was getting TC last year as I didn't earn as much as I do now and they got taken into account.

viva mine won't be written off in 5 years (that will be 25 years!!) as I'm in arrears so they don't write off accounts that are in arrears.

It's not even my fault I'm in arrears. I didn't know they had been sold.

I've had issues with Erudio too. Helping themselves to payments when I've deferred was one thing, but several times they've failed to update my details when provided to them by the Student Loans Company. Twice someone threatened my DPs (as they were my guarantors) with action after they refused to make payment instantly without talking to me first. All because they couldn't reach me via phone - not attempting to write, because their failure to update meant they couldn't take payments.

The second time I changed bank accounts, I rang and wrote to them to ensure it wouldn't happen again. They still didn't update their system. DPs threatened again.

I threatened to report them for their dodgy data practices and removed permission for them to contact my guarantors unless they can prove they have exhausted all avenues to reach me.

Good luck OP.

Fuck them. They are twats.

I owe then about £200. They've just quadrupled what they consider to be my monthly payment and didn't bother to tell me. Now they say ot's in arrears.

They can swivel.

£200 or £2000 Jengr

Didn't realise if you're in arrears they don't write them off.....that's bad. You'd think they'd make you pay the arrears bit still but cancel the rest.

Sadly there's something in the t&c about having to keep them informed of address changes so I doubt you'd be able to argue that your ex kept the post, etc.

Tomorrow I'm going to do a round robin to Step Change, Martin Lewis and my MP.

You need either Step Change or the CAB to set up a debt management plan, its not up to the "guy on the phone", it doesn't matter what he said is or isn't taken into account; there are strict procedures for dealing with this sort of thing. I don't think Step Change will answer a "round robin". You would need to specifically contact the organisation and go through the process, if you do that this can be sorted out.

And because I have these 'arrears' they won't negotiate a lower monthly repayment but actually want more. I don't know why you are giving this company power over you. There's load of information about dealing with debt on the internet, and posters here have urged you to contact one of the free to use organisations like Step Change (although personally I prefer CAB).

Op you keep saying that it's not your fault they are in arrears as you didn't know they were sold. Regardless of which company had the loans you would still of had to defer and failing to do it would have put you in arrears. If you deferred during that time with the student loans company they should have passed it on to Erudio. My loans were with 3 different companies for a while, but I only had to defer with slc

Student loans, the interest and repayments are extortionate, takes away any hope of ever repaying them, earning a reasonable salary means just watching your income disappear in repayments every month. A petition has been started to persuade the government to review the extortionate rates. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/202082