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?

right - I've had another letter requesting less info than the first they sent - go figure. I have decided to just ask them to send me copy of the deferment form that i sent the SLC and my original T&Cs. I now want to keep a proper paper trail of all my dealings with them. My husband drafted the letter for me and it states that I don't agree to any changes to my original loan T&Cs and they they do not have permission to add anything to my files at any CRA. So I will send it recorded delivery tomorrow and await their response. I did also say that I have never received any correspondence about the sale of my loans. I will let you know what happens!

hi everyone on this thread, thankgoodness its here, I'm in a right fizz about all this got papers last week and finally looked at them over the weekend, then in a panic I missed work on Monday to get straight to CAB.
I don't like the new info things they requested, and mainly I don't like the WARNING box and CHANGE IN T AND C. that cannot be right.

CAB said that my concerns were correct and that I should seek financial legal advice from a solicitor that has a relevant back ground. AS it was a Social Policy Issue,

They must have some more interest as in a later phone call to them to check something, they asked if I would mind being involoved with a press release should there be one, I agreed but can check later, might be false hope but it was nice....

this at least told me I'm not paranoid.

the very nice man did also say that it is a justified thing to do to cross out sections in forms that you do not agree with and state why with an additional signature near by. HOWEVER he could not advise this as he did not know what the legal consequences would be. hence the need for financial legal advice.

got home and still needed to do more so rang local NUS, not that helpful but gave me head office numbers.0845 5210 262-customer services-head of social policy.

its late now but I will be emailing them tomorrow night, (as spent all eve glued to this thread) and encourage everybody to do so, the good contact I got was via Customer Services the NUS have a Head of Social Policy. I did not speak to him directly but the person on the end of the phone managed to catch him!!!!whilst I was on hold, his response at the time simple reassurance that.....

they are not allowed to change the original t and c
they are allowed to change the admin procedures they use.

however I did get the feeling that the Head of social policy was interested and was told that he was the person to contact if they stepped out of line,

so having read all the above thread I am going to email him tomorrow asking that he reads this thread as I feel it will be the clearest way for me to explain all that concerns me, I will then follow up with a phone call on Friday afternoon to confirm it has been received and is being acted on asap as my deferment date is approaching fast.

Please join me in this act as it only takes a hand full of emails and calls to get things on peoples alert/must deal with file. this will not be in vein as this guy really did sound concerned and almost like he was waiting!!!!!

last of all has anybody had a successful deferment yet, either with ommisons of details or with a covering letter, cos if that works its simple enough, it is the route I want to take but not ready to be a blind pioneer just yet.

had anybody got any legal proof that proving what we did before is enough, with a covering letter, somebody must have and uncle that is in the legal field.

good luck to all.

STAND FIRM THIS CAN BE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

just a quick question,
the 8 weeks you talk about regarding the complaint to erudio, is that the time frame they have to respond and if that takes me past my deferment date does it postpone my deferment date?

That is all great news, especially the NUS, because i just got passed on when i called a few weeks ago as they were still unaware of Erudio or what they had been demanding.

I cant stress enough to people sending letters to make sure they clearly state that it is an official complaint...this will buy up to 8 weeks in them delaying any deferment decision or taking any action. So, yes, your account will be put on hold and you will get a letter stating this...i got one the other day confirming this. They first send out an acknowledgment letter of the complaint and then within 8 weeks we get an answer. Nothing will happen to your account until then!

In fact, in my complaint, i put all discussed in this thread into 1 complaint, but maybe if future complainants start with the CRAs issue, wait for 8 weeks for a reply, then, if we havent had a happy solution, complain about too much info being needed outside of SLCs needs to buy another 8 weeks etc etc. I think we have 4 or so good complaints relevant to most. What does anyone think about that? We just need to try and block their system with complaints so nothing happens before all these issues have been solved, for the sake of us all and those still getting their packs.
As the initial notice of sale and deferment pack are pretty clear cut about what they are asking us to sign, i feel the only approach to that issue is to take Erudio at their word and what they say they will do and just lodge a formal complaint about it. I say this because if we sign the deferment form and it went to court, and i dont know this for sure, but i would imagine if we sign what they say they are going to do, that could be us authorising them and saying it is ok.
They have to redesign their forms in my opinion, its that simple, with all the changes that we are highlighting in our forums where they have over reached and shown their true colours.
As they have to abide by treating us fairly, as they state in their packs, as well as hopefully having quite a few official bodies looking rather closely at them in the coming weeks with our complaints, if we are all complaining, telling blogging friends, maybe even passing on some tips to journalists, i would imagine things are getting rather hairy at Erudio right now.

waitingforgoddot: that seems like a rather interesting development. Is it a new deferment pack without the CRA issue implicit in the deferment, a reversal to assessing the deferment using the same supporting evidence as SLC needed etc?

And thank you for your kind comments, i shall take that as a group hug with us all at the center, whether readers or posters. When i arrived here, i was also in a total mess, but i was far from the first person here!

@waitingforgoddot

That's really interesting!!! Is that in direct response to your letter?

It would be really good to know what questions/information they've 'dropped'.

Well done to you!

I would suggest everyone emails the media telling them the fast one Erudio are trying to pull, and giving links to this and other relevant threads. Collected a few possible places to send to so far.

[email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Sure there are many more.

media pressure and publicity, as well as the regulators breathing down their necks are going to be the most effective way of forcing these sharks to play fair.

Change of name for identity reasons. mandakl I have a friend who works for BBC in their news dept. She is looking into a specific contact there who would be interested in this story. So definitely the right thing to do to contact newspapers etc.

Great list mandakl, i had just mailed three addresses, and was happy to see your list, who have just all got cut and pasted versions of my findings.

Maybe add: [email protected] and [email protected]

they both wrote a co-authored a skeptical story on the original sale.

ive just had a very odd conversation with the NUS, of which i will mention more details later if it becomes as odd as it felt.

@erudioed - you can't leave us hanging on that!!!

DUN-DUN-DUUUUN!!!

that was funny emptycoffers.
It could be nothing, just me being paranoid, so i want to know for sure before: opening my big mouth, starting something off, only to find out it was me being paranoid and focusing too much of everyones energy on what amounts to nothing. Just pretend i deleted the above post, I shouldnt have said anything really because this is already 3 posts too many on it. Sorry! It was probably just an odd chat and nothing more.

Hi all,

I am a bit of a queen complainer!

so, I have never had a pack from Erudio or any correspondence from them about having taken over my loans. I received a SLC deferral form in Feb and filled it in as normal and sent it back. I then received a letter from this company, I had to google them, saying that before they could consider my deferral they would need copies of my child benifit and working tax credit letters, the tenancy agreement on the flat I let out, a letter from my husband about support, 3 months banks statements and a copy of my last tax return. I was a Saturday so I rang them. I told them that I had supplied with the same info I had supplied SLC with for years and that they had no right to request all of this information from me with no explanation as to why. That I would not be sending them anything until I had taken further legal advice (Hubby thank god) and basically they could log a complaint and that they needed to ring me back to explain themselves and their behaviour (haha, throw back from by teaching days).

I then found this thread and have been working out a plan with my Husband.

They never did ring me but yesterday I received a much 'nicer' letter asking for far less info that did tally with info the SLC were entitled to ask for. Very very interesting!

So, I have sent a letter back so see my post above for that.

Just for info - an email is considered evidence in writing, it does not need to be hard copy and a contract is a 2 way thing, they must also ad hear to their part of the contract as we must so they do not hold all the power even if they are shouting that they do. This is according hubby who is a para legal and has done his law conversion and LPC, he is NOT a qualified Solicitor so don't have this come back on me ;)

If you do request things in hard copy it will cost them money in postage. I have no issues about paying back what I owe etc, but they must not harass, change T&C'S etc and if I am under the thresh hold for deferment then they do not have the right to reject it and I will fight them every step of the way. I took on a company called Redsave may years ago and won. google it if you like :)

Also - can someone clarify for me. it has to be under 28k of taxable income is that right? I am married and we move money around for us and the children, it isn't his loan, its mine - his income and what he shares with me is nothing to do with it surely?

Annoyingly this is talking me away from my PhD work. I loved studentsville so much this is my 3rd time back...

what is less info waitingforgoddot? does it still include address and NI info etc, and more supporting evidence than SLC wanted?
As you sent a covering letter about it, you probably dont have an answer to the CRA issue though right now.
If you sign the form that includes authorisation for them passing on your info to CRAs but you also send an accompanying letter saying you dont authorise that, does one supersede the other.
Im just unsure right now whether it is right to sign those deferment forms at all as they are written now, whether parts are blacked out, crossed out or defaced.

As far as I'm aware crossing out parts of a contract is akin to you offering new terms and conditions which the other party can accept or decline. If they accept I believe they can keep the form as is or re-type a new agreement with the parts you originally crossed out omitted and request you sign again.

As with all other advice here I'm no legal expert!

Quote waitingforgoddot: They never did ring me but yesterday I received a much 'nicer' letter asking for far less info that did tally with info the SLC were entitled to ask for. Very very interesting!

That bears out the fact that they are taking the pee with the info they are asking for, and they damn well know it!

With all this in mind who wants to give me some bullet points so I can formulate a letter template that we can all use?

Something that combines a complaint, eligibility for deferral and a refusal of a change to the terms and conditions? Any ideas? It has to be what we are legally allowed to do so nothing crazy. Something that states we are eligible to defer, we are making a complaint about the clear change to the T&Cs and we are not agreeing to any change in T&Cs.

Aim your response @halfpricedebt on here so I can scan through and pick up points to use. Once I've drafted my letter, I'll post it here for everyone to see. Anyone thought about contacting the guys who do Occupy? They could be a good bunch to get involved.

Sabby1978. im having the same issue. benefits that the council such as child benefit and child maintenance are being classed as my income. the council adjust every penny so bare minimum to live off . tax credits up.. housing adjusted so not a penny better off. they expect me to in essence rob my children off clothes etc. ive emailed and contacted every organisation i can with this. im a single mum of 3 doing a phd. not one penny taxable income

Another idea - keep a diary noting all the dates that you have received anything from them or sent anything back, or had an email or a phone conversation or any contact whatsoever. And keep your proof of posting/recorded mail slips.

So, I filled in their form and sent it back to them with copies of my last 3 wage slips. (I realised they were asking for more detail, but admit I didn't read the fine print & took SLC at their word when their letter informing me of the sale arrived).

Today I have received a letter stating confirming my direct debit details and that the first payment will be taken on 20/4/14 - DESPITE my current deferrment not ending till 19/5/14.

I have called them have been informed that payments will not commence until after the end of my deferrment period (so 20 MAY, not April as in their letter).

I also queried the status of my deferrment application and it appears that the 3 payslips I sent are not enough and they must ALSO have a copy of my last P60 .

I have been advised to email this to [email protected], so will do this today.

It seems they are definitely making the deferrment process more rigorous and more difficult!

that should be [email protected]

Note they were quick enough to write to confirm my bank details, but not to let me know they were missing some info needed for my deferment application!

They do NOT need a P60. That is just their attempt to be difficult.

DO NOT give them your P60 NotMrsTumble.

Three payslips ARE enough seeing as that's what we've all been giving SLC for the last 14 years or so. They are trying to gather information that you are not legally obliged to supply them and this is for their purposes and benefit, not yours. Direct them to the relevant piece of legislation which clearly states what you have to provide them with in order to defer. Any information outside of a statement of earnings or three months payslips is not necessary.

Plus, if you sent payslips to defer then why are they planning to take money out of your account? This means you haven't been deferred! If you were planning to start repayments why would you need to send them payslips? You wouldn't do anything if you weren't deferring.

This is OUTRAGEOUS.

I have just sent them this in a follow up message as I'm still awaiting a response to the email that the customer services lot asked me for confirmation of my address and date of birth before they could respond to my questions about the changes in the t&cs.

Seven days later I'm still waiting for an answer.

You have now taken 7 days to provide me with a written response to this email.

I am now forwarding this again before I will be submitting a written complaint as your deferment forms have clearly made a change to my terms and conditions and I will not be signing any of your documentation until you change the deferment forms to reflect my ORIGINAL terms and conditions.

As your documentation clearly states, you will inform Credit Reference Agencies if I defer my loans - despite my original Terms and Conditions CLEARLY stating that my student loans have no bearing on my credit and are not to be registered with CRAs. You are now in BREACH of this agreement. If I don't receive written confirmation from you in the next 24 hours I will be referring this to the relevant financial authorities.