Erudio Student Loans Continued

[halfpricedebt]

Started a new thread following mrsbug's request.

I got an email from Erudio today telling me that an issue I raised with them on 27 March that was then completely ignored even though they asked for confirmation of my details to process the initial email. I gave them the details they requested and seven days later I still hadn't heard anything. So I wrote them a rather threatening complaint telling them if they didn't respond within 7 days I would report them to the relevant financial services. That was on 3 April and today they've told me that my complaint has been forwarded to their Customer Resolutions Team.

I wonder what they do?

@Moraki

There isn't really any rational explanation as why they can come out with rubbish like that.

Unless they mean that it is inactive at their end so no more payments will be taken?

Does anybody out there speak Erudio?

Frightening that these idiots were able to find £160 million from somewhere, and that the government thought these people had the right expertise!

@eurdioed. I think you and others on this thread have turned in to private investigators with the amount of "digging" you've all done on our great friends Erudio. Lol

I really appreciate all of it though.

I can't keep up with all the updates on this Erudio situation. I've held off as long as I can (my deferment ends in a week or so), to see what Erudio are up to. Now I've got to get something off to them. So I am using the template letter (from early on in this thread), to request deferment without returning their form. I've included payslips, the self employment section from my tax return and tax credits award notice (I've blanked out all my partners details, as it's a joint claim, and most of the tax credits go to her).

What I've also done, is add a statement at the end of the letter telling them that I don't agree to any changes of t&c, or sharing of my details with CRAs. I've also said that I don't consent to them taking payment (I have a current DD in place).

This doesn't give them long to process my deferment (assuming they even accept it, going by others who seem to have had theirs returned with a request to fill in the form), not sure whether to cancel the DD now, or wait to see if they do try and take payment first?

I'm in a bit of a unique position - I am refusing to sign their credit agreement due to the errors in their terms and conditions and have spent 30 mins arguing with the call centre who refused to put me through to a manager.. the bloke really had no idea what to say or do .. now I have two options; I can fill in their form omitting and changing what I don't want to answer and send them back 3 months worth of payslips. The unique thing is that I don't have a bank account - my wages get paid into my wife's account due to having an IVA so I can't give them direct debit details. which brings me to option 2 - I can include this debt in my IVA as it was issued in Feb 2010 before the ruling on student loans vs bankruptcy. It's really in their best interest to defer me.. but I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen..

@powerpooh

timescale: 23rd April - posted letter and evidence, 24th - signed for and received at Rotherham, 29th phone call from them which I did not answer, 30th letter received confirming eligibility but requesting form.

So it was very quick but actually their letter states that they received my letter in their offices (may be just the relevent dept rather than the building) on 28th april so if that is true then actually it was remarkably fast. Just a one-day turnaround!!

It might be worth mentioning that my letter was the only correspondence they had from me - I had not spoke to them on the phone or emailed so it may have made their process easier? Maybe? Who knows!

My deferment date is 15th May so I hope to have it sorted soon.

@powerpooh
Well, we are all focusing on where our own little paths take us, but we all come together and share what we find. Hopefully it wont be ignored and we can call it what it is, or call Erudio Ventura if that is who it is.

Here is my Ventura bomb. Everyone can draw their own conclusion. Above we have the evidence that the IP address for the email sent by Erudio is actually registered to Ventura, who describe themselves as "Outsourcing Experts."

New today, i was sent a googlemap image of the closest Royal Mail sorting center (by the most deadly of investigators we have...and not difficult to work out who if you read back up the thread) to the postcode address listed on the Erudio deferment envelope in Rotherham.
I thought i would have a look around GoogleMaps around the area in Rotherham, and lo and behold, my mouth fell open and i could not believe what i was seeing. Here it is all for everyone to see, our spiritual home i think. If anyone can draw any other conclusion please do inform me, but the pictures speak for themselves i think. These two images are about 400meters or so away from the closest Royal Mail sorting office to the PO Box postcode address in Rotherham:
www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.506953,-1.330407,3a,75y,13.65h,71t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sS-4V6SDHIn4DqkO7Mk2i0A!2e0

and just a little further down the road:
www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.508195,-1.331452,3a,75y,273.45h,74.49t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sVAWL6TiuXKkFf2ohd4tdHQ!2e0

and just to get an idea how large it is, check the name on this plaque outside the head office:

www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.507566,-1.331921,3a,75y,314.39h,74.4t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s3FYgExCtWJCaXw_UXNf_iA!2e0

So, if i have drawn the right conclusions, are we dealing with Ventura (who's parent company is Capita) or Erudio? Have the companies behind Erudio sub-contracted all the work out or not? I certainly want to know. But it is pointless us using the name Erudio, when we are actually dealing with Ventura. And i believe this answers everyone's questions about why the call center is so crap and everything dysfunctional, and the additional pressures we are feeling to turn us into defaulters. Ventura must be on a percentage scheme for collecting money right? And if you dont find that abhorrent....

I call again for The Department of Business Industry and Skills to present us with more information on the due diligence process they conducted. Do they know the deferment process they contracted out to Erudio has been contracted out to someone else we have not been told about...or does Erudio actually have their own staff working inside these call center temples, and when i say their own staff, i mean people not working for Ventura. Questions that need answers i think.

@Erudioed.

Check yer email, bub :D

I'll say in my opinion it is like this:

-Erudio own our loans

-They subcontract out the loans processing to Capita.

-It appears there are two teams working on the loans.

-One team is based in Leeds at Hepworth House, a property owned by Aviva. Capita have a long term lease there:

bdaily.co.uk/industrials/31-05-2013/colliers-acquires-15m-leeds-centre-property-for-aviva/

-One team is based in Rotherham in the Dearne Valley in the Ventura building. Capita acquired Ventura in 2011.

www.capita.co.uk/news-and-opinion/news/2011/july/capita-acquires-ventura.aspx

In short, we as clients are not dealing with Erudio. We are dealing with Capita/Ventura who are working on behalf of Erudio.

To my mind, the student loans were outsourced and the likelihood is that future loan sales going up to 2012 will go the same way.

It's not really surprising that Erudio are subbing out all the call centre/admin work, there's no way they were going to get their own work force recruited from scratch and up to speed in the time they've had (should have been a consideration of the government when they were picking a buyer, but they don't give a shit either). And it's up to Erudio how they run their business, it shouldn't affect our experience as 'customers', but Erudio carry the can when it all unravels.

Sent my letter today, signed for. I'm not sure why anyone is trying to deal with them over the phone. Keep it all in writing, and keep hold of all the paperwork, and everything you send them.

The amount that Erudio payed for the loan book just about covers the loans that are currently being repaid. Any money they get out of defaulters and deferers is where they will make money. Although they've got overheads to cover as well - even if it is just outsourcing/sub contracting fees!

Haggis71 - I would refuse to "contract with them" by not signing anything and refusing to sign anything they've sent to you until they explain why they've tried to vary the terms and conditions of the contract. Anybody signing anything they send is contracting with them, hence why I've advised people not to sign anything.

Tell them to put your account into "dispute". Dispute even having any contract with them as they have breached the original agreement(s) by trying to vary the terms.

They've tried to vary the terms and are also breaking the law written regarding these loans too. I'll put up more when I have time, but use the variation of the terms and conditions as breach for your first complaint. They have not made mistakes, they have tried to induce you to accept new conditions deceptively.

@ekim:
Not surprising maybe but it does makes a difference, when you think you are dealing with one company, when it is actually another, whether it is standard practice or not, should be cause for alarm.
This process, considering its wide ranging implications for all future students not born with a silver spoon in their mouths, is not a standard operation and needs to be conducted with better accountability and control, and that means transparency with who we are dealing with surely.

I'm thinking it's time to contact the Ombudsman.

This is a company who paid an eighth of what the total loan book was worth and are asking us for personal details and 100% payment of what we borrowed from SLC.

I have to repeat - we never borrowed money from Erudio. My portion of what they paid the government amounts to £1000 and that is all they are entitled to as far as I'm concerned. Their utter lack of clarity is a disgrace.

Halfprice - I am with you on that.
Because the government sold out for low money we now will have to pay Erudio back in full, we will then have to pay them back again to the government in extra tax - tweet on Paul Lewis page about that, and it makes sense.

As I said above I think the whole student loan thing should be pushed into a misselling investigation - they were sold as interest free. They weren't - they have not even been at RPI but above it.
If they were interest free a company such as Erudio would not have been interested in them as they would make no money from them.
As an 18 year old I never envisaged that the clause saying they could transfer rights, meant they could sell them to a debt collector.
Child benefit/tax credits/child maintenance are for a child, not adult income - child tax credit didn't even exist when we took out these loans so they couldn't be in the original exemption list along with disabilities for example. The government wouldn't be giving them out if they didn't think the child needed them. They therefore shouldn't be looking to take them straight back again. Again as a student I didn't think so far ahead that I would still be deferring a loan when I had children and that my child benefit would be counting against me!

I've had a further reply from BIS following my response to their bog standard letter a few weeks back.

Here was my response to that original letter:

Dear Jacqueline

It's interesting that BIS are effectively doing Erudio's job by trying to suggest that they are working to ensure fairness.

I, along with many other borrowers can scan and email the clear change to the Terms and Conditions on the Erudio deferment forms which states if I defer, they will register this information with CRAs which was never part of the original agreement with SLC - by signing these forms I am agreeing to that change. Many of us are yet to receive any official written confirmations about Erudio's intentions so please don't patronise us with tales of treating us fairly. This is about a private company making a profit on debt the government wrote off to get it off the books. You have gifted a debt collection agency the power to threaten and intimidate people with debt that the government themselves have placed next to no value on.

Furthermore, if my loans are mortgage style then why doesn't a lump sum payment reduce the repayments? If I were to do this I would only reduce the length of time to repay and not reduce the monthly payments.

The government and yourselves are responsible for selling my loans for the equivalent of 5p in the Pound which makes the total worth of my loan considerably less than the £XXXX Erudio are asking me to pay. How can you justify this as treating the customer fairly?

Nothing about selling MY debt to a private company to make a profit is about treating me fairly.

Warm regards

And here is the BIS response to that - note how they don't address the more pertinent points about the sale price and what my loan is worth:

Thank you for your further e-mail of 10 April to my colleague, Jacqueline Brittain, regarding Erudio Student Loans Ltd. On this occasion I have been asked to reply.

The terms and conditions of mortgage-style (MS) loans have not changed as a result of the sale of these loans to Erudio Student Loans Ltd (Erudio). Erudio must operate in accordance with the terms and conditions specified in borrowers’ loan credit agreements, and must abide by the regulations governing the loans, guidance from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Office for Fair Trading (OFT) and the Credit Services Association (CSA) and other industry codes of practice.

Erudio considers that the reporting of accounts to credit reference agencies (CRAs) is in accordance with section 16 (Disclosure of Information) of loan credit agreements issued before 1998. For loan credit agreements issued from 1998 onwards, disclosure to CRAs will only occur if the account is in arrears or default as specified in part (b) of section 12 (Disclosure of information) or if a borrower has give their consent.

The sale has not changed borrowers' obligations under the original loan credit agreements. Borrowers are still required to repay their loan account balances (if not deferred) in line with the terms and conditions of those agreements.

Borrowers' repayment schedules are recalculated as of 1st September each year, as per the terms of the loan credit agreements and the Education (Student Loans) Regulations 1998. Any lump sum payments made during a year are credited against a borrower's loan balance when received and are taken into account when calculating the monthly repayments for the forthcoming year. However, the previous scheduled monthly repayments will still be due until the schedule is recalculated. If a borrower wishes to make a lump sum payment in place of their scheduled repayments, they should contact Erudio in advance for advice.

Yours sincerely

David Pettit
BIS MINISTERIAL CORRESPONDENCE UNIT

Ministerial Correspondence Unit eh? That's why you've continued to tow the party line isn't it BIS?

On Twitter

"Has your student loan been sold to Erudio? @MartinSLewis will be talking to Erudio on Consumer Team at 12 tomorrow. Send us your questions."

Radio 5 live, sorry trigger happy!

Here is my reply to David Pettit. Yes, I did send this. Why not have a laugh while I'm at it?

Ok David and the rest of BIS, let me put this to you another way - maybe my expensively educated brain has not been clear.

You sold loans worth £890 million for £120 million
Students borrowed the £890 million from SLC
Erudio now own £120 million of these debts so where has the rest of that money gone and why are we being asked to settle 100% of the accounts as normal?

Let me put it another way (a bit like a GCSE Maths exam question so it should be fairly straightforward):

You walk into a shop and buy a television on credit for £500 and a debt collector buys the original credit agreement for £50. The person that lent you that money admits to you that they know you'll never pay it so have decided to write it off and put it down to a bad experience.

In the meantime the debt collector sends you a letter telling you that you owe him £500 despite you knowing they are out of pocket by £50 only. They've told you that you need to fill out some new forms which clearly state they will inform a Credit Reference Agency that you owe money to the tune of £500.

You're baffled. How can this be? You borrowed £500 from Mr TV Seller who told you he was resigned to never seeing that money again and sold it off for £50. He's down £450 but isn't going to chase you for it. The debt collector is down £50 and wants the other £450 that he didn't have in the first place. What do you do? Do you:

a) Pay the nice debt collector £500 they are not entitled to?
b) Pay the nice debt collector £50 and shake hands?
c) Pay Mr TV Seller £50 and say sorry that you got the telly on the cheap?
d) Arrange to settle what you can afford to pay to Mr TV Seller? After all, he was a nice chap.

If you answered A then I recommend going back to school but judging by education costs these days, I would probably open an account for the debt collector to raid at some point in the future. After all, they're entitled to 100% of whatever you didn't borrow from them.

Kind regards

Brilliant!

I am trying to locate my original loan agreements in all my old paperwork but in the meantime could anyone answer my question?

I have yet to send off my deferment application but need to do it soon.
I have 2 loans from'95 &'96.

Question is:
-is there any reason for me to not use Erudio's deferment form?

It would appear that it is only if you have a post '98 loan that you have to worry about the change to the T&Cs if you sign the form with the FPN in place.

I wouldn't fill out any areas of the form that weren't relevant to the income info they require (I have already been told over the phone that I can leave the 'address status' section blank), but should I just use the form and sign it which would probably result in relatively straightforward deferral acceptance for me?

NB - when I received the letter of assignment that had the FPN with it there was nothing for me to sign & return giving consent to reporting deferrals to CRAs, as I presume was the same for everyone with pre-98 loans, I guess because my original T&Cs allow them to do that anyway.

Am I overlooking anything here?

that was brilliant!

Concerning martin lewis talking to erudio...i dont have a twatter account but could someone kindly do me a favour and ask if they have subcontracted the work to ventura/capita. I believe that question will be met with a very interesting answer if martin lewis asks that.
And also, ask if the person representing erudio is actually from erudio, or from another company...i think that answer would also be very interesting if what i suspect is right.
If either of those questions get asked, especially the first one, i think would start to pull back the onion layers a little and do to them what they are doing to us with all this info they have on us. And reveal it in a rather public way.
There may not be many chances to ask them in this way, so i would be very appreciative if a kind person could do that for me.
Here is the link again: @MartinSLewis

I hope your questions get asked erudioed

I also think it is fantastic that Martin Lewis will be talking to Erudio, I am sure he will be inundated with questions via twitter judging by the threads on here & on MSE!

Thanks to persephone for the heads up on that one, I shall be listening intently.

right, i just broke my own law and set up a twatter account and have asked one or two questions that i want to know the answers to. So i guess, anyway else need any asking?

Yes - why are they insisting on their forms being used when all that is required by law is proof of income?

I just worked out that erudio basically paid a seventh of what the total loan book was worth. Apply that equation to your loan total and you'll find what you really owe erudio.

It's time to get real about this. As I've outlined in my email to BIS - how can you owe 100% of what you borrowed from SLC to a company who are out of pocket £120 million?

We need to crowd source the amount that was paid to the government and pay erudio or we all need to work out our portion of the £120million and bombard erudio with offers to settle the account by using its actual worth.

I'm dead serious, this can be done. The only money you owe erudio is your portion of what they paid to own it. They are the ones telling you different but it's pretty simple - they are relying on the moral guilt of "debtors" to pay money they aren't entitled to.

When I highlighted this with their collections department the woman responded by saying "yes, but how would we make a profit if everyone settled their account for what we paid for it".

And that is the crux of the issue at erudio. They want your money, not the amount your loan is worth but the whole apple cart. The key thing is to remember that creditors wield an awful lot of power but it's mainly psychological power. They rely on the "moral obligation" to pay your debts, that's how they get you to cough up. Let's be clear - you are under no moral obligation to erudio. They took the gamble to purchase those debts to turn a profit. They don't own your debt, they own a portion of your debt and your only obligation is to pay that portion and nothing more.

It's time we fought this because it's a much bigger issue than hurting your credit rating. If we don't fight this then future generations are going to enter this "moral obligation" trap which ends with them paying a creditor what they are not entitled to.

Let's get organised. I'm happy to start a blog and plan of action if people want to join me. Get in touch via PM on here and let's get organised.