Advice: Student Loan debt

samtheman01 · 14 August 2015 at 11:33AM

Hi,
Wondering if anyone can help me.

I have recently started receiving letters from CCS Collect, they are chasing me for £552.00 for a debt that is around 4 years old.

When I was at university in my first year, the student loans company overpaid me by £552.00. I had no idea this had happened until recently. I was young and careless at the time and barely checked my bank statements!

I'm pretty sure they were sending letters to my old address so this is why I had never heard of the debt until now.

It seems a little unfair that from them making a mistake, I have to repay a debt of £552 that I never knew I had and had no power over...

I'm looking for advice, they will threaten debt collectors soon. In their most recent letter they say 'we would like to work with you to find a sustainable repayment plan'. Should I call them?

I'm looking for advice on what steps to take next. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Sam

greensalad · 14 August 2015 at 11:42AM

I also got overpaid to the tune of £1402. They sent me a letter to let me know and demanded it back. I couldn't pay it, and it got moved to a debt collection agency. Actually the agency was so much better than the SLC who are completely and utterly unorganised.

You do have the repay the debt. There is no way around this. It sucks I know, but it's written right into your agreement you signed that says you will repay any mistakes by them.

Step 1) DON'T CALL THEM. DON'T CALL A DEBT COLLECTOR EVER. If they call you, say you will only respond to communication in writing and put the phone down. Add this to every single letter you write. "I only deal with communication via letter."

Step 2) Find out what the costs are. Have they added any fees? Or is it straight overpayment? You should be able to log into your SLC account and see any letters that have been sent to you as PDFs so you should be able to dig out the original request from SLC. If the amount requested is £552 then they haven't slapped on any extra. If they have, ask for a breakdown of these costs. While you're at it, update your address with the SLC. You will receive your annual statement with them for the rest of your loan so it's important.

Step 3) Offer your settlement. If you can afford to pay the whole lot, then offer that by letter. If you can't, offer how much you will be repaying monthly.

When I did this, I was sent a big long list I had to fill in of all my outgoings and such. No way am I handing that information over to a debt collector and letting them boss me about, so I threw it in the bin, and instead wrote a firm but polite letter to them saying 'I will pay you x each month for the following x months'. They accepted. The amount was reasonable, so don't go offering £5 (unless that's really all you can afford). The best way to do it would be to offer them the amount within 12 months, so £46 a month. You could even include a first cheque to show you're serious. If you could afford £92 a month then that's even better, as you can get the debt paid off in 6 months. And it's quite likely to be accepted.

Throughout all of this, only deal with them by post. Keep a record of all letters you send (I have a Snotty Letter folder on Google Drive) and make sure you specify that you do not talk to anyone by phone.

Most debt collectors are used to chasing people and having all sorts of issues so actually if you're proactive about it they're more likely to agree with you.

sourcrates · 14 August 2015 at 12:57PM

If you allow the debt to be sold to a DCA, you should get a 30% reduction as an opener to settle the debt.

Dependant on the DCA, that's the usual "first offer" they make you, its highly likely you could negotiate an even greater saving if you tried hard enough.

If your not too bothered about your credit file, that's what I would do.

samtheman01 · 14 August 2015 at 3:33PM

Thank you for the tips! Very helpful.

I will write to them via letter from now on and offer a monthly settlement agreement.

About the DCA. If it get's passed onto them will this damage my credit rating? Also how would I go about passing it onto the DCA?

Thanks.

greensalad · 14 August 2015 at 4:17PM

CCS Collect is a DCA, it's already been passed on. Any affect it would have on your credit file from being purchased by a DCA would have already occurred.

If you're in a position to offer a full&final (you have enough cash) then as Sourcrates says, you could go in with a 50% F&F offer and then negotiate up from there. But if you don't have between £279 - £350 then you're not exactly going to get anywhere trying to offer a F&F. So in that case, continue with your sensible repayment offer.

For reference here is the letter I sent the DCA when it got passed over:

Dear [DCA],

I contacted you via email on the 30th December to discuss arrangements of repaying a debt owed to you on behalf of the Student Loans Company.

I am keen to repay this amount and am therefore happy to present the following payment plan.

You will see on consultation with the SLC that my debt currently stands at £1276. I will pay this balance off monthly over 11 months, at £116 per month.

I am happy to commence payment whenever you can send me the direct debit details for my account.

I will not discuss this with your agents by telephone. Please only contact me by letter or by email.

I simply got a reply from them saying thanks, here are our details and we expect payment on the xth of the month. Paid it off every month (and then did a lump-sum at the end to completely clear it). I kept a record of what I'd paid off and then wrote asking for confirmation the debt was complete once it was all paid.

National_Debtline · 14 August 2015 at 4:29PM

According to the CCS Collect website they don’t buy debts, just collect on behalf of clients, so it’s not clear whether the debt is still owned by SLC.

I think sourcrates is talking about it being passed to a DCA that buys debts for a reduced price as they have more scope to accept reduced settlements.

You could still make a full and final settlement offer as greensalad suggests and see what kind of response you get.

EDIT - Apparently they are working with SLC www.ccscollect.co.uk/slc-debt.html

James
@natdebtline

greensalad · 14 August 2015 at 4:33PM

Ah I didn't catch that, I just assumed it had been sold.

As I said, most DCA's seem to be more competent than the SLC. I sent them a letter during the process of my repayment asking them to confirm it has been sold (this is before the DCA had contacted me but I knew something was up). They sent me a text saying they'd "received my evidence and would be submitting [my] loan to be paid for 2015/16". Talk about stupid, I'd already graduated! They said it would take 5 weeks for them to reply. Didn't ever get a letter actually...

samtheman01 · 25 August 2015 at 6:32PM

Hi guys,

I am going to attempt to make F&F offer by sending them the following letter by post. Is there anyway of improving the wording of this letter? Any advice is much appreciated!

Dear CCS Collect,

I am contacting you via post to discuss arrangements of repaying a debt owed to you on behalf of the Student Loans Company.

I am keen to repay this amount and am therefore happy to present the following payment plan.

You will see on consultation with the SLC that my debt currently stands at £552.00

Considering that the grant overpayment was in no part my fault. I am willing to settle this debt as it stands with a one off payment for £400. This is all I can afford at this moment in time.

I am happy to commence payment whenever you can send me the direct debit details for my account.

I will not discuss this with your agents by telephone. Please only contact me by letter.

Thanks,

Advice: Student Loan debt

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