Student Loan help - what's my position?

BoilerBoy

Hi all

Need a but of advice before I consider my next move.

I graduated in June 2002 and began paying back the wonderfully helpful and gobsmackingly efficient student loans company the following April by PAYE. With the amount of overtime I was frequently doing and a not bad starting salary, it didn't take me too long to work out that I was getting very close to paying back the very modest £3k I'd borrowed in summer 2006.

Since the statements you receive from them are woefully infrequent and always behind schedule, I did (after several phonecalls and endless correspondence) eventually manage to agree with them that I had paid it back with the interest in full, and was even due a small rebate. They then said that they would be in touch with HMRC to contact my employer to tell them to stop taking money off my payslips. Great, I thought, until this was held up by my switching employers.

So I continued to make payments by PAYE despite continuing to pester them to get the HMRC to stop collecting money. This took so long I actually received a further 2 rebates because they had collected so much money. Eventually after few months I finally had word from the accounts dept at my new company that the stop notice had finally come through. I also received correspondence from the SLC telling me that the account had been settled.

However, since then I have received two interim statements telling me I am still over a grand in arrears, dated around 8 months apart from one another (which I didn't receieve immediately as I also changed addresses and didn't get the correspondence for months later). I've also been charged around £100 extra in interest since that period. The first statement I put down to an error as the SLC are notoriously slow at updating their records, however this second statement has got me panicking slightly.

As metioned above, they have written to tell me that the loan was paid back and that the payments were to be stopped, so why is my account still in arrears? In addition, what is my legal standpoint in this situation? Granted the second and final rebates I received were slightly larger than I thought they would be, but not to the extent that they should push my account over 4 figures the wrong way?

I really would like to get this sorted, because like many out there at present I can't just magic this money out of thin air! In addition, I've told my existing creditors I had no further debt on this score, so I am obviously feeling a little bit cheesed off with the SLC who I feel have completely misled me.

I'm grateful to anyone who can hopefully advise.

Many thanks
BB

markelock

One way would be to obtain all statements pertaining to the payment of the debt, i.e to prove the amount of money paid.

you could also just ask student loans to give you a list of payments, and compare the two.

it's going to be a pain, but will be worth it if you don't owe them that amount.

check your credit score at experian for free (assuming it's the first time you've done it, and cancel it within a month to ensure you're not charged for it.)

pollythena

markelock wrote: »

check your credit score at experian for free (assuming it's the first time you've done it, and cancel it within a month to ensure you're not charged for it.)

A student loan won't normally show on a credit report: I know I've requested mine from both Experian and Equifax and they show everything but that. On the plus side, it usually means it doesn't effect your credit rating.