erudio student loans

[mrsbug]

Hi, I have an old student loan from 1998 which I have been deferring since then as I have never earned enough to pay it back (there are some advantages to being poor )

I recently had a letter from a company called erudio student loans saying they have bought my student loan from the government. All very reassuring about how the t and cs of my loan won't change, etc.

Now I've had the regular deferral letter from them and it's much more detailed than before. They want my bank details which I'm not really happy to give, and they say my details will be checked with a credit reference agency, which I don't think they used to do - my loan has never shown on my credit file.

Has anyone else had this? Do I have to give them this info?

simonpimpernel - excellent post - great insight to what Erudio are up to!

Please everyone note that the guys on the phones are NOT the decision makers in relation to your deferral. They are not empowered or able to give you a yes or no answer. So don't be disheartened or in any way influenced by what they on any matter of judgement.

My understanding of the 'journey' of a deferral application is something like this:

You get the forms - you decide how you much info you give or whether you reply.

If you return it, it will be opened, scanned and the contents checked against a list.

Anything missing - letter to you to query.

This process will go on until you reach a blank wall where you refuse to honour your Direct Debit for whatever reason.

Only at this point, ONLY now, will your case go legal and you have a chance of being contacted by someone with knowledge and power - however it is still unlikely.

They will be reluctant to issue court proceedings so will contact you endlessly to try and pressure you into paying.

At this stage, withut a court judgment against you, you are not in default - they will just hassle you endlessly.

If they go to court to get a judgment, this is the point at which they have to stand up and confirm whether or not they have changed the T&Cs - ONLY NOW - not before.
This is the point where you say, I should be deferred anyway because my income is below the threshold and that Erudio have acted illegally in changing the T&Cs and that the claim for payment is unjust.

My feeling is that, on the balance of probabilities, a court (and I think it would just be a county court) will find for the borrower in any case where they can prove their income is below the deferral threshold.

NOTE: this is a quote from the freedom of information request rplied to by SLC and linked to in my previous post:
The only reason for a customer’s deferment application form being rejected
is if they are earning over the deferment threshold. If a customer queries
this they will be advised of the criteria for deferment and if an error has
been made by the Student Loans Company, this will be rectified.

I just got the following email from Erudio;

Dear Mr xxxxxxxxxxxx

Thank you for your recent emial dated 21st March 2014.

I can confirm the only time that a Erudio Student Loan would be regiestered with the credit file agencies is if it is in arrears or had defaulted on payments.

Please be advised that if you are applying for deferment and there are no arrears outstanding this would not be registered with the credit file agencies

I trust this clarfies the situation.

Should you require any further assistance please do not hesitiate to contact us.

Yours sincerely

Erudio Student Loans

erudioed - good link - note the London address is also for Wilmington Trust

thats great news ichibodT. In fact fantastic, a confirmation of what the above poster said they were told over the phone. That means they are backing up this idea in writing now. We all need to get that in writing as the letters the sent out are all wrong. In fact, if they were a real business, they would have to resend all the information again with the deferment form totally redesigned (and thats just for the CRA issue alone). One down, still a few to go.

IchibodT: i have just had this pointed out to me:
An e-mail is not the same as written confirmation, with the SLC i used to always get a disclaimer at the end of an e-mail saying this as e-mails can be corrupted. basically you need to chase them up for written confirmation.

As such, it seems to suggest you need to ask them to put it in writing and mail it to you contact address. As such, thats what we all need to do and not consider emails because they cant be legally binding i guess.

ERUDIO DEFERMENT FORM... A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO ERUDIO/CREDIT REFERENCE AGENCIES EFFECTING YOUR CREDIT RATING.

Hello everyone. Here is a possible, simple solution to the problems everyone is having regarding CRA'S and Erudio possibly effecting your credit rating...

Photocopy page 5 of the deferment form and cover the LAST PARAGRAPH OF THE WARNING SECTION WITH A SOME BLANK PAPER i.e where the paragraph starts with-
ACCORDINGLY THEREFORE BY SUBMITTING THIS APPLICATION... cover this line and those below it with a black sheet of paper and now photocopy the page (do not cover the lines above where it says in accordance with the terms set out in the original credit agreement). Now with this new page, sign page 5 of the form, which should now only say in the WARNING SECTION you are signing in accordance with the original terms of the loan.

Also, your new form won't have a page 6 which continues with the warning. Thus when you sign, you are not signing to agree to the unfair processing terms Erudio states, but rather to the original terms... Wouldn't that solve your problems regarding Erudio / CRA's
trying to effect our credit rating.

I just blanked out all references to supplying deferment details to CRAs (pages 5&6) with permanent marker. And signed and sent off with covering letter.

Right, just a little info on our beloved Erudio, its dear leader and just who our Government has sold this loan to. Taken from yahoo news and im sure you will all be very interested:
"Will Erudio Student Loans represent the best value for the tax payer, as the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills claimed when it sold the company £160m of student debt last week?
Erudio is the joint venture set up by CarVal Investors and Arrow Global, the debt management specialist, to manage that loan book.
What has been kept quiet, however, is that Erudio’s trustee is the London arm of Wilmington Trust, the Delaware-based bank that is being investigated by the US Department of Justice in relation to “issues” that arose before the lender was rescued from collapse with a $351m (£214m) bailout from M&T Bank in May 2011.
No doubt the BIS conducted its due diligence in the “competitive” bidding process.
But might Wilmington, which provides London office space for Erudio and has installed its UK director, Mark Filer, on Erudio’s board, rethink its “company policy” of not speaking to the press when it takes control of the public debt early next year?"

Right, if anyone (and i cant imagine they are) is getting nowhere with Erudio's confused and unguided receptionists, you may wish to take note of the following information and send a personal email, or a quick call to chat about his company, to our beloved leader. You might say such things to him as i thought i would mail you directly because i have been in communication with your unorganised, unprepared company and thought i would come to the organ grinder, mainly because i have already wasted XX hours of my own time calling your call center and getting nowhere.

Erudio Student Loans
Mr Mark Filer Director
[email protected]
Telephone020 7397 3600
Fax020 7614 1112020 7614 1112
Websitewww.erudiostudentloans.co.uk
AddressC/o Wilmington Trust Sp Services, Third Floor, London, EC2R 7AF, UKCompany Number08605918

If not, and you just want a general chat you could maybe mention some of these other companies where he spends much time as Director i am sure overlooking his empire. You may need to add an h at the start of the link:
ttp://www.cdrex.com/mark-howard-filer/225243.html
And dont forget their are nine pages of companies over which he resides.
You may feel like asking if there is a direct correlation between the haphazard running of his organisation and the sheer lack of time he would realistically be spending rallying his troops/training them considering his time must be very spread considering he is director of X zillion companies. Or, if he just employs someone on a pay per results basis and tells them they can do what they want and then just leaves them to it, and if that is shown in how poor his front line staff are at answering any questions of substance, and then when in a tight spot, just making stuff up

But dont worry about his privacy because despite having run and running more companies than i knew existed on the planet (nothing dodgy about that), you wont find a photo of him anywhere.

Just use his contact information and tell him what you think, or better, ask him why his company is a shambles to deal with. And after that, wonder how our beloved government could even entertain doing business with a vulture like this guy!

link to pictures and video of Mark Filer here
www.abieventi.it/eventi/1947/mib-conference-securitisation-covered-bonds-conference-2013/
www.abieventi.it/public/videos/057/5746_0.jpg

Thankyou to everyone who has added info and advice to this thread. My deferment comes up in May-ish, just had my letter saying loan has been sold. Off to read it properly as I have pre and post 98 loans...

Ok. Here are my proposals for a way to tackle these chumps:

1. Put in writing to Erudio a request for confirmation in writing of the terms and conditions along with confirmation that CRAs are not involved if you defer. Do this by post and through recorded delivery.

1. Fill out deferment form excluding the sensitive information they are asking for. Do not provide NI number, DD details etc, only provide what you are legally obliged to provide - three months payslips or a statement of earnings from your employer.

1. Do not sign the deferment form unless you have blacked out all of the information relating to CRAs and a change in your T&Cs (would be good if someone could confirm whether this makes any difference if you have signed the form but defaced it).

1. Send a cover letter and include your three months payslips/statement of earnings to confirm you are eligible for deferment and that you have sent a letter instead of the deferment form because you are NOT agreeing to their change in T&Cs.

1. Everyone concerned about these loans to complain through the appropriate channels as outlined by erudioed in earlier posts.

1. Call, email, bombard Mark Filer for written confirmation of Erudio's intentions.

1. Cancel any DD you have on your account but INFORM ERUDIO that you have done so and why. Tell them in any correspondence that until they have confirmed there will be no changes to the T&Cs as per the original agreement, this DD will remain cancelled but will be applied to the account once they guarantee their procedures.

1. If you are considering paying your loan to avoid being shipped to a CRA then request an income/expenditure form from Erudio or send them a letter detailing what you are able to pay. Send this by Recorded Delivery also.

These are just ideas but if anyone else wants to add then feel free. It would be good for us all to approach this in the same way as it will be pretty difficult for Erudio to deal with hundreds of demands like this.

thats great halfpricedebt, we really do need to get organised, what about this one:
i think everyone should initially lodge a complaint with erudio about their gripe, whether it be about CRAs, unnecessary information or supporting info they say they need, or indeed as many of the above apply to you, or just all 3, or other complaints. This will get things going and buy time of about 8 weeks at most until they reply.
Running concurrently, complain to the BIS complaints address above and the Financial Conduct Authority, complaining about all 3 issues or others that bother you, including a personal account of how disorganised erudio switchboard is and the obvious blagging approach its staff are taking because they dont have the answers. Then at the end, and this is the big new idea, suggest that Erudio should be printing and mailing out a new deferral form and getting your form correct booklet without the unnecessary stuff, all the CRA stuff because the pack is for deferers only, and their necessary supporting info needed. (I suggest this final part because we need a deferral form we can sign without any of the shit on it that is clear and dignifies a deal involving xxx thousands. Signing an incorrect form and then everyone having hand written waivers on items in the deferral packs is ridiculous.) I also suggest mentioning that they wont even listen to short settlements even though us deferers are likely to have the loans cancelled soon...i suggest this because it shows they feel they can get the whole of the loans somehow by entrapping us to default. I also suggest stating the stress it is causing all because they couldnt get their forms right, their procedures arranged on time or even treat their customers with the respect they promised.

Whilst all that is in the works, we have the 8 weeks at most for them to respond to our complaints because of the deferment deadline being extended. Maybe before then and hopefully soon, someone will get written confirmation from erudio stating a) no CRAs will be informed if you are defered, b) they are ok with you leaving parts incomplete, and c) they will be ok accepting less supporting info than they need. After we see that, hopefully a jpeg or something as proof, just in case erudio are watching such threads as this and planting turd seeds, we should then suggest to erudio that they send out new deferal forms and covering booklet (but when we get there, we could plan what to do next). Maybe even making this a new compliant for another 8 weeks if needed when that time arrives.

OR, we will get negative responses to all our concerns and they will stand firm on us filling in the deferrment form or we wont be defered. If this happens, then we have the BIS and FCA investigating our complaints, an investigation that will be running concurrent with the erudio complaints. Hopefully, one will influence the other. But if not and the 2 outside investigations are not completed, the we can then go to the Ombudsmen with the furthering of our complaints. Dont forget, Erudio get charged about a £100 if the complaints are upheld. If they rule in our favour, or if we achieve a good response from the first stage, then we will all make Erudio restart their whole programme again so that they get it right and realise that they cant push a lot of us around if we are all on the same page, as well as erudio knowing that the financial services are watching them. I think that would be a big result, newsworthy maybe.

So in short, complain to erudio and BIS and FCA now.
Then we take each step when/if it arrives.
And not forgetting, like halfpricedebt suggests, bombard Mark (Howard) File with a tsunami of questions, whilst we are twiddling our thumbs waiting for something significant to happen!

i checked the direct debit on my current account and the student loan ( listed but not active due to deferral) entry has changed to ESL LTD. Sorry to say, but I think many of you may have forgotten the original direct debit mandate you filled out ( nearly seventeen years ago for me now). If this has not been altered or cancelled it seems as though it will automatically be reassigned to ESL. My bank doesnt seem to have querried the change in assignation.

Don't want to be a wet blanket but....

before we go getting all medieval on their asses...

from my perspective, having done pretty much everything outlined by halfpricedebt... I'm now going to wait and see what Erudio do.

If they approve my deferral, and they haven't rejected or approved anybody's yet... then great.

If not - having ascertained why - we may have to go medieval.

Politically, I don't agree with selling the loans. Hell, I didn't agree with having the loans in the first place but hey, those battles are done.

I'm not, at this stage, going to tie myself in knots, chasing people and complaining exponentially - it's going to be stressful enough when that becomes necessary. If they don't defer me (and they have no valid reason not to) then they will have to go to the expense of getting a judgement - I'm not going to spend my time and money pursuing them for civil matters - they'll pay and they'll lose in court too.

Frankly though, I don't think Erudio are naive enough to take people to court on technicalities, if they're clearly earning below the deferral threshold.

Erudio are not stupid - they are experienced in this - they know they would lose on court.

What they are is experienced debt bullies and they will hope the pressure, of whatever kind, will pay off and make people repay when they don't have to.

I had my moment of panic. The ball's in their court now. They now have to act - and everything for them is an expense, let 'em pay!

emptycoffers:
i hear you but if we dont complain outside at the same time, then IF Erudio dont return positive replies, you may be back where you were a week or so ago. If we all write to BIS and the FCA, then they may be able to nudge erudio to sort their operation out. We need new deferral forms because blanking info out and sending it back i doubt will hold up to much. Maybe it will but i doubt it. they seem pretty disorganised to me and if you look at info about Honours student loans on other forums (erudio is the renamed company apparently), i would suggest we all need to cover ourselves by getting as many people on our side as possible.

Last night, i also tried to register with a credit reference agency to see my credit file. I was startled to see that much of the extra info erudio wants is what the CRA needed to register, especially the stuff about previous addresses. In fact, i gave up before registering because i just didnt have enough previous property info for them to join. Maybe a coincidence, maybe not.

genie I went into my bank to check if the Direct Debit originally to SLC had been transferred across. It had. The man in the bank was a bit that it had been allowed to happen and cancelled it. He was equally concerned that the T&Cs were allowed to change and that by allowing the direct debit to stay that could mean some automatic acceptance of their new T&Cs. I will now have to contact Erudio to tell them to reinstate the direct debit on the old terms and conditions.

I agree erudioed - I'm lining up my weapons - just holding off firing them for the moment. The great thing about this thread is how we're all pooling our knowledge and formulating a plan of attack - this is going to be a long-term issue. There's no way Erudio will just fold and back off.

On your CRA registration point - I remarked in one of my first posts that the information Erudio was asking for is EXACTLY what a bank/credit card/finance company asks for when they want to credit check you - which I suspect is what Erudio is doing - credit checking everybody to see what their money situation is like and whether they are worth pursuing.

There are many ways to skin a cat too - if they can't get hard cash from any of us, you can bet they'll sell our data onwards for any money they can get - borrowers are a potential seam of buried income and they will mine us as much as they can - however they can.

LittleMissGreen - my DD switched over to Erudio automatically - I think it's probable that under the sale agreement - the law of assignment - would allow Erudio to become the owner of that information - you'd have to consult a solicitor to be 100% - be aware though of the potential issues with either not having an active DD on your loan account and also not providing an alternative method of repayment.

@emptycoffers - remind me again what you gave to Erudio? Save me scrolling through the thread as I'm at work. Was it you that gave them a blacked out form?

I did check about the DD cancellation with Erudio and asked if there was a penalty for doing this and the person on the phone said no. Realistically there isn't a punishment for cancelling a DD that isn't currently taking any money out. If you agree to pay then that DD becomes legitimate but if you haven't agreed to pay then why would you have a DD set up on the off chance you might pay through DD? Plus, there are other ways to pay so it leads me to believe that by having the DD they are relying on people to forget they have it so that money can start coming out. I will set up a DD if and when I agree to pay a fixed amount of money.

I think I'm going to send a recorded letter saying I'm not agreeing to the changes indicated on their deferment forms and also send them the income/expenditure form agreeing to pay £79 a month only as per the new loan style payment structure. That way they get some money at a sensible payment structure that won't ruin me.

As much as I don't like it, especially as they paid peanuts for it, I did borrow money that I promised to pay back at some point. On the one hand I think it's tough lumps as I didn't take a loan out with Erudio, on the other I also think I should pay back what I took, and on the third hand I think it's outrageous that the government can write this debt off but sell it to a private company to make a profit on. It all leaves an incredibly bad taste in my mouth.

Halfpricedebt I agree completely with your last paragraph. The only thing I do have concern over and will therefore complain about is the changes to T&Cs and the underhand way they are trying to get people to agree to them.
I do wish the gov had asked me first if I wanted to pay a minor lump sum to pay my loan off rather than selling it to a debt collection agency, but it is too late to do anything about that now.
I do have a gripe that they were advertised as 'interest free loans' yet have constantly been above CPI since it was introduced as the 'true inflation measure' over RPI, and the government choose which they want to use depending if they assessing money out or money in. The government must at some point have realised that this was unreasonable hence capping all later loans even if RPI did go up (before they now advertise them as non-interest free loans).

if you are legitimately allowed to defer, dont let these pressure tactics turn you. It is what was agreed that you could legally defer if you didnt earn above the threshold...that was tax payer money. You are not paying the tax payer back now, erudio have by paying £160 million for our loans. This lot just want to turn a deferrer into a payer (or defaulter) as they have 10 or so years to allow you to pay off the whole debt, instead of it being written off. At least wait to find out if our complaints get them to be more reasonable before making an offer. I am hoping many have complained and there are thousands who wont have visited this site just as outraged who i am sure will be lodging complaints trying to get them to treat us fairly (like they stated in their original pack).

I've been advised to contact CAB about the terms and conditions change. Would be great if someone here has already had legal advice on this and can share what they found out. Anyone out there a solicitor or anything like that?

I spoke to the CAB this morning. They basically advised me to contact the Information Commissioners office.

This afternoon I have spoken to the Information Commisioners office regarding Erudio notifying CRAs that you have a loan/s in deferment.

Initially the person I spoke with seemed rather confused by my request and had to go away to make enquiries. When he returned he informed me that Erudio were probably legally allowed to do this as the owner of the loan (it was a bad phoneline so I may have misheard this part.)

Basically, he advised me to clarify with Erudio what exactly would be put on file with any CRAs in the event of deferment being granted - ie would it say 'Deferred loan' etc.

He also advised me to contact the CRAs and discuss with them the likely impact of such a thing being placed on my file.

Whilst this is not the original help I was hoping for when I called the CAB it is possibly good advice.

Update: Managed to speak to an advisor with Experian who claimed that in his 6 years working with them he has never seen any mention on anyones file of a loan being in deferal.